June 2nd 2010, Amsterdam – On May 28th, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) finished its third global conference on sustainability and transparency which was held this year on May 26th to 28th in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This year’s slogan for the conference was «Rethink, Rebuild and Report». The conference was focused on developing a global agenda on the issue of sustainability reporting for the next 10 years. The audience was composed of political science experts and decision makers from the business, financial, and governmental sector as well as from the civil society sector.
The discussions between the various sectors focused on GRI’s strategy for the upcoming years. The GRI was set out to achieve two major goals over the next decade. The first goal is that the environmental, social and government reports (ESG by its acronym in English) become general practice in order to help markets and society to make more informed and responsible decisions. The goal of the GRI is that in 2015 all large and medium enterprises in the OECD countries and in the fast-growing emerging market economies should publicly report on their ESG performance and that these enterprises also state the reasons if they fail to do so.
Secondly, it proposes that GRI ESG reporting and financial reporting need to converge in the next decade. GRI advocates the development of a standard for integrated reporting which must be defined, tested and approved by 2020. GRI is working with leading global organizations to create the International Integrated Information Committee in order to promote integrated reporting and to facilitate the coordination and collaboration between different institutions for the purpose of developing reporting standards.
Based on these goals, several initiatives were launched involving major stakeholders from different sectors. One of these initiatives seeks to strengthen the quality of information on sustainability in the business sector. For this, the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) announced an agreement to align their work in promoting corporate responsibility and transparency. Under the terms of the agreement, the GRI will develop guidelines on the ten Global Compact principles and the thematic areas that have to be integrated into a comprehensive framework in order to facilitate transparency and accountability for corporations and other organizations seeking to disclose their environmental and social performance. At the same time, the Global Compact will adopt the GRI guidelines as a framework for reporting recommended for most of the 5800 signatory companies.
Moreover, it was sought for the governments to play a greater role in sustainability reporting to ensure a minimum level of disclosure and risk prevention. In this context, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), KPMG Sustainability, the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have launched the «carrot and stick – promoting transparency and sustainability program”, a study on trends on voluntary and mandatory approaches to sustainability reporting. It investigates the latest developments in sustainability reporting and ESG (environmental, social and governmental) in the regulatory field.
Finally, during the event two supplements were presented. One for the food processing industry and other for civil society organizations. GRI has responded to the demand for increasing transparency by developing sector-specific adaptations.
Sustainability reporting has become an essential tool towards achieving sustainability as a core of public policies and business strategies. As key actors in this process, NGOs are taking the challenge not only to demand but disclosure and measure their own impact and performance on a range of economic, environmental and social indicators. However, most of the sustainable reporting tools, originally intended for the private sector often become difficult to apply for non-governmental organizations, limiting the feasibility of measuring their impact. The GRI NGO Sector Supplement provides an opportunity to assess, to consider and to communicate the effectiveness of policies and programs as well as the impacts of its activities.
For more information about the conference: www.amsterdamgriconference.org
For More Information:
Natalia Soto
Researcher Human Rights, Business and Sustainable Development
[email protected]
Verónica Cipolatti
Coordinator Human Rights, Business and Sustainable Development Program
[email protected]