GRI (Global Reporting Initiative)

Definition

GRI is an NGO established in 1997 by the US-based non-profit environmental citizen organization, CERES to develop and promote guidelines for sustainability reporting. The GRI's Sustainability Reporting Guidelines are steadily being accepted as a global standard for sustainability reporting *1.

The GRI is a worldwide network of stakeholders including experts participating in GRI working groups and organizations producing sustainability information reports using GRI guidelines, utilizing the GRI-based reports, and contributing to the creation of a GRI Reporting Framework. The GRI aims to promote common conventions and to enable comparability, such as currently exist in financial reporting, in corporate reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance. To promote its mission of establishing reporting principles and indicator protocols, GRI provides its GRI reporting guidelines free of charge.

To date, nearly 1,000 organizations in over 60 countries have declared their use of the GRI Reporting Framework for sustainability reporting, including a growing number of Japanese companies publishing CSR reports. To ensure the highest degree of technical quality, credibility, and relevance, the GRI Reporting Framework is continuously revised and improved. The most recent version, "Sustainability Reporting Guidelines v3" (G3) was released in Amsterdam, Holland, in October 2006. G3 consists of two main sections, "Principles for Defining Report Content" and "Principles for Ensuring Report Content" *2. The guidelines are unique for not emphasizing complete detailed disclosure, but rather the "materiality" of the disclosure in relation to stakeholders and the selection process for disclosure topics and indicators.