Global Reporting Initiative - Why Are The GRI The Most-used Guidelines and How Are They Created?

Why Are The GRI The Most-used Guidelines and How Are They Created?

"The Global Reporting Initiative is the steward of the most widely used reporting framework for performance on human rights, labor, environmental, anti-corruption, and other corporate citizenship issues. The GRI framework is the most widely used standardized sustainability reporting framework in the world.”

The Guidelines are the most used, credible, and trusted framework largely because of the way they have been created: through a multi-stakeholder, consensus-seeking approach.

This means that representatives from a broad cross section of society — business, civil society, labor, accounting, investors, academics, governments, and others — from all around the world come together and achieve consensus on what the Guidelines should contain. Having multiple stakeholders ensures that multiple needs and all stakeholders are considered. This contrasts to what might happen if, for example, just business representatives or just NGO representatives created the guidelines. It is also beneficial as it helps to increase the chances that all relevant sustainability issues are included, and the accompanying best measures are developed.