The GRI standards encompass a wide range of sustainability topics geared to meet the needs of a broad and diverse group of stakeholders.
Citing the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development aspirational goal for sustainable development — ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. GRI states that its raison d’etre is, “to help organisations be transparent and take responsibility for their impacts so that we can create a sustainable future.”3
To that end, sustainability reporting using GRI standards creates the opportunity for an organisation to identify its impacts on the economy, the environment, and/or society, and disclose those impacts publicly in a common language that lends itself to greater comparability, quality, transparency and accountability. This reporting enables stakeholders, both internal and external, to make informed decisions about the organisation’s contributions — both positive and negative, to the goal of sustainable development.