Quick Comparison
| GRI | ISSB | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Full ESG — economic, environmental, social impacts | Sustainability risks and opportunities affecting enterprise value |
| Applicability | Any organization, any size, any sector | Entities preparing general purpose financial reports |
| Required/Voluntary | Voluntary (referenced in CSRD/ESRS and other regulations) | Voluntary (being adopted into law by multiple jurisdictions) |
| Geography | Global, strongest in Europe and emerging markets | Global, targeting capital market integration |
| Key Focus | Impact materiality — effects on people and planet | Financial materiality — effects on enterprise value |
| Assurance | Encouraged, not required | Designed for assurance; expected as jurisdictions adopt |
What is GRI?
The Global Reporting Initiative has served as the backbone of sustainability reporting since 1997. GRI Standards provide a comprehensive framework for organizations to report on their most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people. The framework centers on impact materiality — an organization determines what to report based on the significance of its outward effects on the world, not solely based on what affects its financial performance.
GRI's modular structure includes Universal Standards (GRI 1, 2, 3), which apply to all organizations, and Topic Standards covering economic, environmental, and social subjects. The 2021 revision strengthened the framework's human rights foundations and clarified the materiality assessment process. GRI also launched a Sector Standards program to provide industry-specific guidance, starting with oil and gas, coal, and agriculture.
With over 10,000 reporting organizations worldwide, GRI remains the most widely used sustainability reporting framework globally. Its influence extends into regulation — the EU's ESRS were developed in partnership with GRI, ensuring high interoperability between the two systems.
What is the ISSB?
The International Sustainability Standards Board was created by the IFRS Foundation in 2021 to develop a global baseline of sustainability disclosure standards for capital markets. The ISSB issued IFRS S1 (General Requirements) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures) in June 2023, drawing heavily on the TCFD, SASB, and CDSB frameworks it consolidated.
IFRS S1 requires disclosure of all sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could reasonably be expected to affect an entity's cash flows, access to finance, or cost of capital. IFRS S2 provides specific climate disclosure requirements built on the TCFD's four-pillar framework with added industry-specific metrics from SASB. The ISSB uses a single-materiality approach focused on information relevant to investors and capital markets.
The ISSB's standards are being adopted or formally considered in the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Brazil, Nigeria, and other jurisdictions. The building-block approach allows jurisdictions to adopt ISSB as a baseline and supplement with additional requirements.
Key Differences
1. Materiality Philosophy
This is the defining distinction. GRI's impact materiality asks: "What are our most significant effects on people and the environment?" ISSB's financial materiality asks: "What sustainability-related risks and opportunities could affect our enterprise value?" A chemical company's impact on a local water system is material under GRI based on the severity of harm to the community. Under ISSB, it's material only if it could reasonably affect the company's financial position — through litigation, regulatory action, or reputational damage.
2. Primary Audience
GRI serves a multi-stakeholder audience: investors, employees, communities, governments, civil society, and consumers. The ISSB serves investors and capital market participants. This audience difference is not cosmetic — it fundamentally shapes what gets reported, how it's framed, and what level of detail is provided. GRI disclosures on community engagement or indigenous rights serve stakeholders who may never read a financial statement.
3. Topical Coverage
GRI covers the full range of sustainability topics through over 30 Topic Standards spanning governance, environment, and social issues. The ISSB has issued two standards to date — general requirements and climate — with additional topics under research. Organizations reporting under GRI today address topics like tax transparency, supply chain labor practices, and anti-corruption that have no ISSB equivalent yet. The ISSB's topical coverage will expand over time but currently lags GRI's breadth.
4. Sector Guidance
Both frameworks are developing sector-specific content. GRI launched Sector Standards with Oil & Gas (2022), Coal (2023), and Agriculture (2024). The ISSB inherited SASB's 77 industry-specific standards and has indicated plans to build on them. Currently, SASB industry standards provide more granular, quantitative sector metrics, while GRI Sector Standards offer broader impact-oriented guidance.
5. Reporting Context
ISSB standards are designed to accompany general purpose financial reports and be published at the same time. The connection to financial statements is explicit and required. GRI reports can be standalone sustainability reports, integrated reports, or portions of annual reports — the framework is format-agnostic, providing greater flexibility in how and where disclosures appear.
6. Conceptual Foundation
GRI is rooted in the concept of sustainable development — the idea that organizations should report on their contribution to (or detraction from) economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The ISSB is rooted in capital market efficiency — the idea that investors need sustainability information to make informed resource allocation decisions. These different conceptual foundations produce different reporting outcomes even when addressing the same topic.
Which One Do You Need?
Use GRI if your stakeholders extend beyond investors, you operate in jurisdictions adopting double materiality requirements (particularly the EU under CSRD), or you want to report comprehensively on your organization's sustainability impacts. GRI is the natural choice for organizations prioritizing accountability to communities, employees, and civil society.
Use ISSB if your primary audience is the investment community, your jurisdiction is adopting ISSB-based disclosure requirements, or you need streamlined, financially-oriented sustainability disclosures that connect directly to financial statements. The ISSB is the right baseline for capital market-focused reporting.
Use both — and increasingly, you'll need to. The EU's ESRS explicitly require double materiality, drawing on both GRI (for impact materiality) and concepts aligned with ISSB (for financial materiality). Organizations subject to both European and ISSB-adopting jurisdictions will need to address both lenses.
Can You Use Both?
Yes, and the frameworks were designed with interoperability in mind. In 2022, GRI and the ISSB signed a cooperation agreement to ensure their standards can be applied together. IFRS S1 explicitly permits entities to use other frameworks (including GRI) alongside ISSB standards, and the ISSB has published guidance on how the two systems interact.
The practical approach is to conduct a materiality assessment that evaluates both impact and financial materiality — sometimes called a "double materiality" assessment. Topics that are material under both lenses get full treatment in both reporting streams. Topics that are material only under impact materiality appear in GRI disclosures; topics material only under financial materiality appear in ISSB disclosures. Data collection is unified; presentation varies by audience.
Council Fire's Perspective
The GRI-ISSB relationship is the most important dynamic in sustainability reporting today. We view them as complementary halves of a complete picture, not competitors. Organizations that understand both frameworks can build a single data collection architecture that serves multiple reporting obligations — GRI for stakeholder accountability, ISSB for capital market communication, and ESRS for European regulatory compliance.
In our experience, clients who start with GRI's broader materiality assessment and then identify the financially material subset for ISSB produce better reports on both sides. The impact lens surfaces risks that a purely financial analysis might miss, while the financial lens sharpens GRI disclosures with quantitative rigor. We've helped dozens of organizations design this integrated approach, and the efficiency gains over running parallel processes are substantial.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will GRI and ISSB eventually merge?
No merger is planned or expected. The two organizations serve different purposes — GRI addresses multi-stakeholder accountability through impact materiality, while the ISSB addresses investor needs through financial materiality. Their cooperation agreement ensures compatibility, but their distinct mandates will remain. The EU's double materiality concept effectively uses both.
Does ISSB compliance satisfy GRI requirements?
No. ISSB compliance covers financially material sustainability information, which is a subset of what GRI requires. Many GRI disclosures — particularly around labor practices, human rights, community impacts, and governance — have no ISSB equivalent. An organization could comply fully with ISSB while leaving significant GRI disclosures unaddressed.
Which framework do regulators prefer?
It depends on the jurisdiction. The EU's ESRS draw heavily on GRI for structure and content, particularly for impact materiality. Jurisdictions adopting ISSB-based standards (UK, Japan, Canada, Australia) align with the ISSB's financial materiality approach. Many emerging regulations are converging on double materiality, which requires elements of both frameworks.
How do I handle topics that are material under GRI but not ISSB?
Disclose them in your GRI report or sustainability report. These topics — community impacts, labor practices, indigenous rights — matter to stakeholders even if they don't meet the ISSB's financial materiality threshold. Your ISSB disclosures focus on the financially material subset, while your broader sustainability reporting covers the full range of significant impacts.
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