On 19th October 2016, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) launched a set of GRI Standards, based upon the GRI G4 Guidelines. The GRI Standards are the latest evolution of GRI’s reporting disclosures which have developed through more than 15 years of a robust multi-stakeholder process. The Standards feature an improved format with new modular structures. The content is basically the same as the GRI G4 Guidelines.
The GRI Standards are a set of 36 modular Standards that facilitate corporate reporting on topics such as greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water use and labour practices. The new format allows GRI to update individual topics based upon market and sustainability needs, without requiring revisions to the entire set of GRI Standards.
In order to inform interested parties of the new Standards, GRI is organising a series of free launch events (live and webinar) around the globe from now and through November. Registration is on-line here.
Those companies that are currently in accordance with the G4 Guidelines will have until 1st July 2018 to move over to using the new Standards approach.
The GRI Standards are available for free download on the GRI Standards hub on the GRI website, along with detailed mapping documents that show all of the changes from G4 to GRI Standards. GRI is in the process of organising the translation of the Standards which can be expected to appear on the GRI website during the course of 2017.