Improving Sustainability Disclosure: the Global Reporting Initiative Guidelines
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has emerged as the leading initiative in building a new reporting infrastructure to complement financial reporting and address the non-financial aspects of the economic, environmental, and social performance of organizations. This chapter introduces the GRI and the trends that are driving increased sustainability disclosure. It describes the benefits of such reporting and concludes with considering a few of the challenges that lie ahead in elevating sustainability reporting to unprecedented levels of rigor, consistency, and comparability.Originally published in Sissel Waage and Ray Anderson, eds., Ants, Galileo, and Gandhi: Designing the Future of Business through Nature, Genius, and Compassion (Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf Publishing Limited, 2003), 202-212.