The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) mission is to develop and disseminate a generally accepted framework for reporting sustainability information. Since its founding in 1997, GRI has worked with a worldwide network of stakeholders interested in improving organizational transparency about economic, environmental, social impacts to create this universally applicable reporting framework.
At the center of the reporting framework are GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines - last released in 2002. Over the years hundreds of organizations have used the Guidelines as the basis for their reporting, and thousands of stakeholders have used information in reports issued by the organizations they are interested in or have a relationship with.
A process to update and improve the 2002 Guidelines started in 2003, and has undergone three main phases:
- The Structured Feedback Process: engaging 450 people worldwide on how to improve the 2002 Guidelines (2003-2004).
- The Multi-Stakeholder Working Groups: The draft G3 Guidelines are the result of nearly a year’s worth of research, development, and consensus-seeking by a series of technical working groups comprising 100 people total, each assigned to focus on different parts of the Guidelines (2005)
- The Public Comment Period: The draft was released for a 90-day period and comments were invited by any interested party (Q1 2006).
- Governance Approval Process: After being adjusted to reflect comments submitted during the public comment period, the GRI Technical Advisory Committee, Stakeholder Council, and Board of Directors will review the G3 Guidelines and approve them for release in October 2006.