Guidelines

• Overview of Sustainability Reporting
• Overview of the Guidelines
• Part 1: Report Content, Boundary, and Quality
• Guidance for Defining Report Content
• Principles for Defining Report Content
• Setting the Report Boundary
• Quality of Reported Information
• Part 2: Standard Disclosures
• Disclosure Items
• 1: Strategy and Analysis
• 2: Organizational Profile
• 3: Report Parameters
• 4: Governance, Commitment & Engagement
• Disclosures on Management Approach and Performance Indicators
• Economic Performance Indicators
• Environmental Performance Indicators
• Social Performance Indicators
• Part 3: Guidelines use and report compilation
• Glossary

2 of 16

Overview of the Guidelines

Orientation to the GRI Reporting Framework

The GRI Reporting Framework is intended to serve as a generally accepted framework for reporting on an organization’s economic, environmental, and social performance. It is designed for use by organizations of any size, sector, or location, and takes into account the practical considerations faced by a diverse range of organizations – from small enterprises to those with extensive and geographically dispersed operations. The GRI Framework describes the general and sector-specific content that has been identified by a wide range of stakeholders globally as generally applicable for describing an organization’s sustainability performance.

The Guidelines consist of principles for defining report content and ensuring the quality of reported information as well as standard disclosures  comprising performance indicators and other disclosure items. The Guidelines also include guidance on specific technical issues in reporting.

Technical Protocols exist for each of the performance indicators contained in the Guidelines. These technical protocols provide definitions, compilation guidance, and other information to assist report preparers and ensure consistency in the interpretation of the performance indicators. Users of the Guidelines should also use the technical protocols (See www.globalreporting.org/protocols).

Sector Supplements complement the Guidelines with interpretations and guidance on how to apply the Guidelines in the context of a given sector, and include sector-specific performance indicators. Applicable supplements should be used in addition to the Guidelines rather than in place of the Guidelines.

Orientation to the GRI Guidelines

The Sustainability Reporting Guidelines consist of principles, standard disclosures, and specific guidance on technical issues that arise throughout the process of preparing a sustainability report. The Guidelines describe how and when each of these elements should be applied in decisions such as identifying stakeholders; selecting issues and indicators to report on; setting the report boundary; ensuring information quality; and indicators, frequency and medium of reporting, and assurance.

The principles, performance indicators and other standard disclosures are equal in weight and importance. When these elements are used in combination with the guidance on specific technical issues, they will result in successful reporting.

Executive Overview of the Guidelines

Part 1 – Report Content, Boundary, and Quality
Part I presents the sustainability reporting principles of inclusivity, relevance and materiality, sustainability context, and completeness, along with a brief set of tests for each principle. Application of these principles (which involves the use of standard disclosures) determines the issues and indicators to be reported. This is followed by guidance for reporting organizations on how to define the range of entities that should be represented by the report (also called the “report boundary”). This section concludes with the presentation of the principles of assurability, balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, and clarity, along with tests that can be used to help achieve the desired quality of the reported information.

Part 2 - Standard disclosures
Part 2 presented the standard disclosures for sustainability reports. The Guidelines present information to report that is relevant and material to most organizations and of interest to most stakeholders in three types of standard disclosures:

• Disclosure items that set the overall context for reporting and for understanding organizational performance such as its strategy, profile, governance, and management approach.
• Disclosures on management approach that address how an organization approach a given set of htmlects and provides context for understanding performance.
• Indicators that elicit comparable information on the economic, environmental, and social performance of the organization.

Part 3– Guidelines Use and Report Compilation
Part 3 provides guidance on how to apply the Guidelines, the frequency and medium of reporting, assurance, and other topics. The section concludes with a discussion of the importance of reporting for continuously improving sustainability performance.

2 of 17