Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a voluntary, multi-stakeholder approach to develop a corporate reporting system based on sustainability for organizations around the globe. GRI was created in 1997 through a partnership between the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). GRI convened stakeholders from around the world to develop reporting guidelines to help corporations report performance at the facility level. GRI was released for the first time in March 1999. After incorporating public comments into the draft guidance, an updated release of the guidelines was issued in June 2000. In 2002, GRI was established as an independent, international, multi-stakeholder establishment.

Measures

Economic performance indicators include: profit, assets, investments, wages, benefits, labor productivity, taxes, community development, suppliers, products, and services.
Environmental indicators include: energy, water, and material consumption; emissions to air, land, and water; land use; and compliance.
Social performance indicators include: employee retention, health and safety, wages, benefits, training, education, human rights, suppliers, products, and services.

Strengths and Limitations

Strengths

Creates consistency of reporting information across different facilities.
Allows for comparing of organizations worldwide.
Flexible, can be implemented incrementally.
Reduces redundancy among other reporting guidance documents.
Suitable for measuring performance of individual facilities or groups of facilities receiving pollution prevention assistance.

Limitations

Not suitable for measuring the performance of an entire pollution prevention program, as GRI is geared towards measuring success of individual facilities.
Does not provide guidance on data collection or report preparation.
Does not directly measure pollution prevention.
Difficult to measure regulatory integration.
Does not measure changes in level of awareness or incremental changes.
Facilities may have difficulty using GRI measures and may not wish to release results to P2 grant program participants.

Application

GRI provides a useful framework for combining a variety of efforts using a consistent measurement. P2 grant program participants can work with businesses to measure performance changes using GRI indicators. For example, when the South Carolina DHEC follows up with a facility after conducting a P2 assessment, it now uses a new form to quantify performance changes using GRI measures.

Additional Information

The GRI reporting guidelines may be accessed online at http://www.globalreporting.org/.

Top of page

Pollution Prevention Home | OPPT Home

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

Local Navigation