Corporate Knights - Links To External Studies

Links To External Studies

Prioritizing Global Reporting Initiative Indicators

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) created the G3 sustainability reporting guidelines as well as 14 sector-specific supplements. GRI identified these barriers to sustainable investing that must be overcome:

• 1. Lack of prioritization: When investors calculate ROI there are hundreds of indicators not deemed financially significant and if there’s limited disclosure anyhow, investors naturally shy from the challenge.

• 2. Data doubts: Consensus on ESG factors is hard to come by and even when it is approached there can be uncertainty about sources, limitations and characteristics of available data.

• 3. Lack of guidance on how to integrate ESG metrics into standard valuation models: There isn’t yet a default model of using ESG data once it is collected and ratified by the investor.

G3.1 is GRI’s most recent iteration of its Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

In 2010, the Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S) and the Global Reporting Initiative announced the formation of the International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC).

Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants: Environmental, Social and Governance Indicators

In 2010, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) published a report stating that mainstream institutional investors are beginning to factor environmental, social and governance (ESG) indicators into their decision making.