Introducing the GRI Standards

hello everyone and thank you for joining us today for this short webinar introducing the DUI standards my name is Ban Buck I'm the director of the standards division at gii together with my colleague Chelsea Reinhard deputy director of the standards division we're going to provide you with a first look at the brand new set of gii Standards this presentation will run for about 20 minutes in total we'll begin with a brief background on gii then we'll give you an overview of the new standards and a summary of the key benefits they will deliver for reporters

and other users next we'll walk you through some of the new features and changes compared to G4 including the redesigned layout and the new modular structure we'll explain briefly how the standards can be used and then we'll discuss the implications for reporters finally we will introduce some additional resources designed to help you transition from G4 to the new standards first a brief background on the context of GI and sustainability reporting for over 15 years organizations have used GI sustainability reporting guidelines to publicly disclose their impacts on the economy the environment and Society this practice of

reporting enables transparency in understanding how organizations contribute both positively and negatively to the ultimate goal of sustainable development since 2000 we have seen a tremendous uptake of GI based reporting around the world driven in part by increasing stakeholder demands for transparency as well as new policy instruments the G4 guide guid lines are currently used by several thousands organizations in more than 90 countries in addition the guidelines are specifically referenced in policy or regulation in more than 40 countries and regions as well as 24 stock exchanges now as the latest step in the evolution of the

guidelines we are excited to announce the release of the first ever set of sustainability reporting standards known as the GI standards the gri sustainability reporting standards are the first Global stand standards for sustainability reporting the gri standards are the latest evolution of gr's original sustainability reporting guidelines the content has been restructured into a set of modular interrelated standards this new modular structure means standards can be updated independently or new ones can be added without revising the whole set this will help protect your investment in gri reporting as the standards will be responsive to new developments

and stay even more upto-date and relevant for reporters there are three Universal standards used by every organization that makes a sustainability report and there are three series of topic specific standards which cover economic environmental and social impacts the starting point for using the standards is gr 101 Foundation it explains how you use and reference the set of Standards introduces the 10 reporting principles and explains how to prepare a report that's in accordance with the standards by applying the materiality principle from this standard you identify your material topics those with the most significant impacts and influence

on stakeholders this focus on materiality helps you report on the impacts that matter most based on your material topics you select the topic specific standards that are relevant for you you also apply the other two Universal standards g102 General disclosures is for reporting textual information about your organization and its reporting practices you use gr 103 management approach to report how you manage your material [Music] topics you'll use this standard together with each topic specific standard to explain why the topic is material and where the impacts occur each gri standard has a similar structure with clear

distinctions between reporting requirements recommendations and guidance this makes it easier to know what you need to report and how you need to report it the gri sustainability reporting standards the future of reporting this next section starts with an explanation of what the gri standards are and then highlights their key benefits before we get into too much detail it's important to note that the gri standards are built on the main content and cont Concepts from G4 so existing reporters will be glad to know that the vast majority of disclosures from G4 will carry through to the

new standards with minor changes in restructuring however the standards look and feel different they feature an improved format a new modular structure and numerous content clarifications as well as an overall editing of the text as part of this transition project content from the G4 guidelines and the G4 implementation manual has been brought together in the standards this means that rather than Consulting a separate implementation manual you will find guidance or examples located next to the disclosures they relate to we'll have a more detailed look at this new format later on today so why did g

embark on this transition from G4 to the new set of Standards there are four main reasons to highlight first the new structure is far more flexible and future proofed than the Consolidated set of G4 guidelines with the modular design individual standards can be updated and new ones added without revising the entire set or requiring reporters to adopt an entirely new framework this allows the standards to better respond to developments in reporting practices and key International instruments it will ensure the standards stay relevant in the future and it will protect the investment that organizations have already

made in adopting J as the tool of choice for sustainability reporting second moving from a de facto standard to a formal set of Standards will allow J to be referenced more broadly by governments and Market Regulators around the world this is fundamental to help drive further uptake of credible sustainability reporting and it will also enable businesses to use the gri standards to comply with new regulatory pressures becoming an official standard is closely linked to changes in J's governance structure including establishing the global sustainability Standards Board or gssb as our independent standard setting body however you'll

also see more standard setting elements reflected in the new format including clearer language and better distinctions between requirements recommendations and guidance third the gri standards provide a single solution for a range of sustainability reporting needs they offer a comprehensive framework and a common set of disclosures for organizations to report on the full set of their material topics however we also allow more flexibility within this framework to enable reporting on specific economic environmental or social issues for example an organization might want to use only our water standard to report on its impacts related to water conservation

finally the gri standards were developed following the gsb's transparent due process protocol with extensive input from a diverse set of stakeholders this makes them a credible and a robust set of standards that truly were developed in the public interest more information on our standard setting process including our public consultation can be found on our website in this section we will talk about about the new features and changes compared to G4 first as we mentioned earlier the most noticeable change is that content is now organized into numerous modular standards rather than being Consolidated into a single

document second we have clarified in each standard which content is a requirement and which content is a recommendation or guidance this makes it much easier for reporters to understand which instructions are mandatory for prep preparing an in accordance report and which content is intended as useful guid or examples all requirements are denoted with the use of the word shell and bold font all recommendations are denoted in separate sections and using the word should in addition a number of key Concepts from G4 have been clarified in the standards based on our ongoing monitoring and stakeholder engagement

process with G4 users these important clarifications will enhance the consistency and quality of reporting we look at these in more detail a bit later next there are now much clearer instructions on how to use and reference the standards both for preparing in accordance reports as well as for those who want to use selected standards to report on a specific topic such as biodiversity or local communities last we have used this opportunity to carry out an overall editing review throughout the standards language has been revised and duplicative content has been taken out with the new set

of Standards there are three Universal standards that apply to all organizations and the set of 33 topic specific standard that each relate to a separate economic environmental or social topic the idea is that organizations can select and use only those topic specific standards that are relevant based on their material topics in the future additional standards can be added to this set to cover new topics now I'll explain what you can find in the three Universal standards ji 101 Foundation is your starting point we'd encourage you to read this standard first it includes the reporting principles

and the inaccordance criteria from G4 but it also has a new section on using the standards for sustainability reporting it includes additional detail on the options to use and reference the standards as well as specific claims which organizations can make J 102 General disclosures is based on the general standard disclosures from G4 with minor changes and restructuring these disclosures request contextual information about the organization and its sustainability reporting practices finally jri 103 management approach covers the dma or disclosures on management approach content from G4 but it has been brought together with additional guidance and recommendations

from the implementation manual this standard is designed to be used together with each topic standard to report the organization's management approach for each of its material topics the topic boundary disclosures are also now covered in gri 103 we'll talk more about the topic boundary later on in the presentation before we go too much further it's worth highlighting that some terminology and numbering has changed compared to G4 we no longer use the term indicator instead the standards use disclosure to refer to all information which is to be disclosed or reported whether it's quantitative or qualitative information

that means that each indicator from G4 is now referred to as a disclosure but in most cases it will still cover the same content and will still have a unique disclosure number we also no longer differentiate between an aspect and other topics like we did in G4 instead the standards use the word topic throughout to refer to any economic environmental or social topic whether the topic is covered by the gri standards or not third we're not using the G specific acronym dma this is just referred to as the management approach or management approach disclosures following

the new structure and numbering system each disclosure has been renumbered based on the number of the standard where it can be found so for example disclosure g410 on employees from G4 is now called disclosure 1028 and it is the eighth disclosure in J 102 General disclosures all of this information on disclosure content and numbering can be found in our detailed mapping document which is available for free on the G standards website on this slide you get a sneak preview of the new layout of the standards you'll notice that each disclosure has a unique number and

title and for each disclosure content is clearly organized into reporting requirements recommendations and guidance requirements can cover the information to report the disclosure content itself but in some cases there are additional requirements about how to compile or present this information these are designed to improve consistency and comparability and how organization's report organizations preparing a report in accordance with the standards either core or comprehensive must comply with all requirements that correspond to the disclosures they report more detail can be found in section three of gii 101 Foundation this slide summarizes some of the main areas where

content or concepts from G4 have been clarified these include the definition of impacts as related to materiality how to use the GI sector disclosure which are now recommended but not required reporting on other material topics not covered by the standards using reasons for emissions and how to notify GI of the use of the standards in addition GI 103 management approach includes additional clarifications on the topic boundary as well as how to report the boundary if it extends outside the organization for example when impacts occur in the supply chain as part of a par technical review

the terminology related to employee and worker has been reviewed and in some cases revised the objective of this review was to improve consistency across the standards and to better align our requirements with key International instruments more information on this project can also be found on the GI standards website thank you Bastion for that highlevel overview I'm just going to take a few minutes now to talk through a couple of the most essential content clarifications first it has been clarified in the G standards that the term impact is referring to effects on the economy the environment

and Society not to impacts on the organization itself this means it is now even more explicit that organizations need to focus on the impacts on the economy the environment and Society in identifying their material topics it is acknowledged that these impacts can also be related to consequences for the organization itself but the latter are not the focus of the reporting activity second it has also been clarified in J 101 Foundation that any report claiming to be in accordance with the standards either the core or comprehensive option is required to include all material topics even those

that are not covered by a topic specific gri standard we give you clear instructions on how to report on these topics the organization is still required to report its management approach using Jeri 103 and where possible it is recommended to report other appropriate disclosures these of course can come from other reporting standards or Frameworks the next clarification relates to the topic boundary this concept has evolved significantly since the first version of the gri guidelines it is arguably one of the most challenging areas of sustainability reporting for G4 reporters and it was inconsistently understood in the

standards the concept has now been simplified and is better aligned with key instruments such as the UN guiding principles and the oecd guidelines for Multinational Enterprises the topic boundary concept is based on the expectation that organizations should disclose and take responsibility not only for impacts they cause directly but also those they are contributing to or are directly linked to for example through their relationships with suppliers or customers the topic boundary now requires a description of where the impacts occur for each material topic and a description of the organization's involvement with the impacts we did a

lot of stakeholder consultation on this content and we optimistic that this revised disclosure will be more clear for reporters and will promote greater transparency for organizations to disclose impacts Beyond those they cause directly the next section outlines the ways the standards can be used and referenced like G4 the standards are primarily intended to be used together to prepare a sustainability report in accordance with the standards meeting the inord criteria signals that the reporting principles have been applied and that the report provides a full and balanced picture of the organization's material topics their Associated impacts and

how these are managed any organization that wants to use the standards to report on the full picture of its impacts is encouraged to follow this approach and to meet the inaccordance criteria however the standards also allow greater flexibility for those who want to use the selected standards or even parts of their content to report specific information for example an organization might want to report only on the topic of child labor and could use GI 408 child labor together with the sections of GI 103 management approach to disclose its impacts in this area and how they

are managed any use of selected standards like this requires a specific GI reference claim statement to be included in published materials this ensures transparency in how the standards have been applied it has also been clarified as mentioned earlier that any use of the GI standards is in published materials requires notifying GI this is free of charge and can be done via VIA our website this enables GI to get a better understanding of where and how the standards are used so we can continue to improve them in the future so we've covered quite a lot of

information about the new standards and you may be wondering what this really means for you particularly for existing users of G4 as we mentioned earlier this is not G5 it is built on the main content that disclosures from G4 the impact on your reporting process including the information you need to collect C and Report should not change significantly the reporting principles the focus on materiality and the importance of the management approach or carries through to the standards some disclosures have been clarified and some aspects from G4 have been restructured or merged in the new format

however all of these changes are set out very clearly in the mapping document available on the GI standards website it is also important to note that reporters will have a generous transition period the standards will be required for all reports published on or after 1st of July 2018 we do encourage and expect that many organizations will begin using the standards ahead of this timeline finally before we close the presentation today we wanted to present you with a set of additional resources available to help understand and implement the new standards the gssb and gri are committed

to supporting users with the transition to standards and we have a number of resources available as mentioned before the detailed mapping document will be ential for users of G4 to understand changes or clarifications by Disclosure or topic this document allows users to search and filter by standard disclosure or type of change and will be available as a flexible excel-based tool as well as a printable PDF resource in addition this recording and the associated presentation are also available for download on our website we have a detailed half-day training module offered through J's certified training training partner

Network this training module will give in-depth support and also practical exercises to help reporters fully understand and get comfortable with the new standards in addition we will be running live webinars on the 19th and the 26th of October they will cover the same content we presented today but with an open Q&A session with the standards division this is a good chance to be able to ask your questions and get answers in person along with the webinars we will be carrying out inperson launch events in selected countries around the world the list of these dates are

all up on the G standards website and you can register to attend a free event near you we will also be working in the future on translations of the standards and on updating the existing linkage documents between J and other reporting Frameworks more information on these will be made available in our website in the future finally for organizations that are looking to be ahead of the curve we have a specific gri standards Pioneers program this is designed to give dedicated support to early adopters of the standard so please get in touch if you're interested thank

you Chelsea and thanks to all of you who joined us today we hope this provided you with a good starting point for learning about the GI standards and please visit our website for more information and to register for upcoming webinars and events