What is GRI Standards?

What is GRI Standards?

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards are a modular set of sustainability reporting standards that enable organizations to disclose their most significant economic, environmental, and social impacts. Originally launched in 2000 and most recently updated in 2021 (effective January 2023), the GRI Standards follow an impact materiality approach—focusing on how the organization affects the world rather than solely on how sustainability issues affect the organization's financial performance. Over 10,000 organizations across 100+ countries use GRI Standards, making them the most widely adopted sustainability reporting framework globally.

Why It Matters

GRI established the foundational grammar of sustainability reporting. Before GRI, corporate sustainability disclosures were ad hoc narratives with no consistency, comparability, or structure. GRI introduced the concepts of materiality assessment, stakeholder engagement, reporting boundaries, and standardized metrics that every subsequent framework has built upon. When a company today conducts a materiality assessment—regardless of which framework it reports under—it's using an approach GRI pioneered.

The 2021 Universal Standards revision significantly tightened GRI's requirements. GRI 1 (Foundation) establishes reporting principles and requirements. GRI 2 (General Disclosures) mandates organizational, governance, strategy, and stakeholder engagement information. GRI 3 (Material Topics) requires a documented process for identifying and prioritizing material topics based on actual and potential impacts. These universals apply to every reporting organization and eliminate the previously common practice of cherry-picking favorable metrics while omitting material impacts.

GRI's relationship with the regulatory landscape is uniquely advantageous. The EU's ESRS were developed in close collaboration with GRI—EFRAG and GRI signed a cooperation agreement during ESRS development, and approximately 80% of ESRS disclosure requirements have a corresponding GRI disclosure. Companies already reporting comprehensively under GRI have a significant head start on CSRD compliance. Many jurisdictions outside the EU reference GRI as an accepted or recommended reporting framework, and several stock exchanges (including those in South Africa, India, and Brazil) mandate or encourage GRI-aligned reporting.

For multi-stakeholder organizations—those accountable to communities, employees, governments, and civil society as well as investors—GRI remains the most appropriate comprehensive framework. Its impact materiality focus captures issues that investor-oriented frameworks like ISSB may exclude, providing a more complete picture of organizational sustainability performance for non-financial stakeholders.

How It Works / Key Components

The GRI Standards are organized into three tiers: Universal Standards (GRI 1–3, required for all reporters), Sector Standards (industry-specific material topics), and Topic Standards (detailed metrics for individual ESG topics). A company reporting "in accordance with" GRI must apply all Universal Standards, report on all material topics identified through the GRI 3 process, and use the corresponding Topic Standards for each material topic.

The materiality assessment process under GRI 3 follows a structured methodology: identify actual and potential impacts across the organization's activities and business relationships, assess the significance of those impacts based on severity (scale, scope, irremediability) for negative impacts and scale and scope for positive impacts, prioritize the most significant impacts as material topics, and validate the results with stakeholders. This process must be documented and disclosed, providing transparency about how reporting scope was determined.

Topic Standards cover 33 sustainability topics including GRI 302 (Energy), GRI 305 (Emissions), GRI 306 (Waste), GRI 401 (Employment), GRI 403 (Occupational Health and Safety), GRI 405 (Diversity and Equal Opportunity), and GRI 418 (Customer Privacy). Each standard specifies management approach disclosures (how the company manages the topic) and topic-specific disclosures (quantitative and qualitative metrics). Sector Standards—covering oil and gas, coal, agriculture, aquaculture, and mining with more in development—identify likely material topics and additional sector-specific metrics.

GRI's 2021 revisions strengthened several areas: due diligence requirements now explicitly align with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises; reporting on human rights impacts is more rigorously specified; and the materiality process is more prescriptive, reducing companies' ability to avoid difficult topics. The standards also enhanced value chain reporting requirements, pushing companies to assess impacts beyond their direct operations.

Council Fire's Approach

Council Fire supports clients in implementing GRI-aligned reporting programs that satisfy stakeholder information needs while building toward regulatory compliance under CSRD/ESRS and other mandatory frameworks. We design materiality assessments that meet GRI 3 requirements, help organizations establish data collection systems for Topic Standard metrics, and ensure the reporting process generates management-relevant insights alongside stakeholder-quality disclosures.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should my company report under GRI, ISSB, or both?

It depends on your stakeholders, jurisdiction, and strategic objectives. If your primary audience is investors and you're in an ISSB-adopting jurisdiction, ISSB is your regulatory baseline. If you have broad stakeholder accountability—to communities, employees, governments, NGOs—GRI provides the comprehensive impact-oriented framework these audiences expect. Most large companies will need both: ISSB for investor-focused financial materiality and GRI for comprehensive impact reporting. The good news is that the frameworks interoperate well—GRI and ISSB published joint guidance on using both standards together, and the overlap reduces duplication significantly.

How does GRI's materiality approach differ from ISSB and ESRS?

GRI uses impact materiality—what are the organization's most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people? ISSB uses financial materiality—which sustainability matters could affect enterprise value? ESRS uses double materiality, encompassing both. In practice, GRI's impact materiality captures topics that financial materiality might exclude (e.g., community displacement, biodiversity loss in low-regulation contexts). Companies using GRI alongside ISSB effectively achieve a double materiality scope, which is why the EU accepts GRI as a strong foundation for CSRD compliance.

Is GRI reporting subject to assurance requirements?

GRI itself doesn't mandate assurance, but strongly recommends it. The 2021 standards state that organizations "should seek external assurance" and must disclose their assurance practices. However, regulatory regimes that reference GRI may impose assurance requirements—the CSRD mandates limited assurance for ESRS reporting that largely mirrors GRI. The IAASB's ISSA 5000 sustainability assurance standard applies to GRI reports. In practice, the proportion of GRI reports receiving external assurance has grown steadily—approximately 70% of large-company GRI reports now include some form of external assurance, up from 30% a decade ago.