GRI workshop with EPRI

Editor's Notes

1. NA notes:When GRI network looks at the sustainability challenges we are facing, what they want to understand is “how can business be profitable and contribute to solutions at the same time?”, “ how are all organizations contributing to fce these challenges”?
2. As part of the reporting journey, many organizations experience these benefits. Sustainability reporting also demonstrates organizational commitment to sustainable development and compare organizational performance over time.What is your company’s contribution for the future?Do you know how to measure it? Are your managers ready to face what is coming?Who is asking: Carbon traders, financial risk managers, insurance companies, buyers, clients…your children
3. I’d like to get your perspective here on who’s asking for your sustainability information; you can give the investor perspective here (if you want) but also highlight other types of stakeholders that are asking for sustainability info.
4. NA notes: This is the way we see the GRI network. In its main components and they will shape the organization and “Due process”. The ones with a (*) are literally mentioned in all GRI internal documents. This means that decision making processes will have to take them specially into account. Academia, Governments and many others are under “mediating institutions” which are the other players in the reporting field.
5. NA notes: Let’s understand how the network operates-The GRI governance bodies are 3 – BoD (around 15 members), SC (around 40 members) and TAC (around 15 members). All decision taken by GRI involve these bodies in different ways. All of them are composed by the stakeholders described before. In the TAC the balance among constituency groups is less important as the technical skills of the member and geographical representation play a more important role. - Under the leadership of the Chief Executive, the Secretariat –based in Amsterdam since2002 – implements GRI’s technical work and manages network and institutional communications, stakeholder relations, financial admin and outreach initiatives. As an extension of the Secretariat GRI has Focal Points in 5 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, India, US) . Focal Points give GRI a regional presence on the ground, build sustainability reporting capacity and connect local sustainability initiatives with global ones, with the added insight of local knowledge and languages. GRI has also started to nominate senior experienced representatives who have been part of the GRI governance bodies to become GRI AmbassadorsOrganizational Stakeholders are GRI’s core supporters, providing vital funding and lending their name to GRI’s Vision and Mission. We count on circa 600 organizations in this group. All sizes and from different groups.Because of the very specific role governments are playing in shaping up the reporting field and as they have started to ask for GRI guidance on how to regulate in the reporting field, in 2009 GRI has started an advisory body to the GRI BoD with individual representation of governments. In march 2012 it counts on 15 countries.Training Partners and training participants (present in more than 40 countries), projects sponsors and other partners are strategic partners in disseminating the GRI Guidelines.GRI has built Strategic Alliances to increase the GRI Framework with other international guidance on reporting or related matters. The most prominent ones are the ones with UNGC, OECD, UNEP, and lately a strong collaboration with ISO because of ISO 26000
6. NA notes:And at the core of what we do there is a believe that “what you can’t measure, you can’t manage nor change”. GRI works to offer support to all organziations to measure and report on what are they doing to face the sustainability challenges we are facing.
7. NA notes:And this is what the GRI Guidelines and sector Supplements are about.Reporting is a tool to help answer to the sustainability challenge!
8. Na notes:By using the GRI Guidelines, organizations prepare their sustainability reports,triple bottom line, corporate responsibility reporting, non-financial performance, etc.(or other documents).GRI reports contain information on economic, environmental and social performance of companies, and also on governance aspects related to sustainability management.It can be written for a wide audience of stakeholders.It is actually a circle of continues improvement, as the number of organizations that give up sustainability reporting process is very very small.More:Reporting is public disclosure – thereby the commitment to transparencyReporting is performance focused – how is your performance on economic, environmental and social impacts?Reporting is interrelated – your impact on the world, and the world’s impact on you, is only clearly understood if you realize that the aspects you are reporting on are not discreet. Eg, environmental impacts have economic consequences. Sustainability reports provide internal & external stakeholders with insight into key performance indicators such as energy and water use, greenhouse gas emissions, and human rights issues.
9. NA notes:The GRI Guidelines can be understood in 3 main Parts. a.The GRI Reporting Principles for quality of information and quality of the reporting process. b.The Standard Disclosures per category, where the Guidelines presents what – after defining the focus of the report using the Principles – should the organization report on. c. the Third Part, which is the organization profile. A description of the organization’s characteristics, include governance model.More on a.Reporting Principles guide organizations in deciding their report content and to text the quality of the information displayed in the reports. 4 Principles offer specific guidance on how to choose the focus of the report: Materiality, Stakeholder Inclusiveness, Sustainability Context and Completeness. The most “famous” one is “Materiality”. More on b. and c.Standard Disclosures – are a list oftopics and Indicators that the organization can actually report. The selection on what to report on depends on the application of the principles just described. They include Management Approach (define how the organization operates, its systems, policies and goals) and Performance Indicators, divided into 3 categories: Economic, Environmental, Social (Social is sub-divided into Labor, Human Rights, Society and Product Responsibility) pg 24 RG in the G3 guidelines.
10. Added a few more in Jan 2011http://www.globalreporting.org/GRIReports/GRIReportsList/
11. These are absolute numbers.Interesting trend is that whenever sector-supplement guidance is issued – the number of reports in that sector go up significantly. See red bars.
12. Only 12 out of 273 (GRI w/ index reports) are “integrated reports” in the US. = less than 5%
13. NA notes:Finally, there is a 6th work stream which will tackle how to improve and amplify the GRI guidance for sectors.As expressed in the first PCP and many other consultations, there is a general understanding from GRI stakeholders that there is considerable international agreement that material topics are better expressed by sector, if there is a request for specific type of information which can only be defined usefully per sector.To build on this direction GRI will start inviting internationally
14. NA notes:How GRI network develops the GRI Guidelines?Through a called “Due Process”, which is a well established and defined steps on how new content can be developed or revisions can be made.- In a simplified way we could say that, it always starts with a decision of the BoD. After it, the BoD request a work plan to implement what the BoD has decided should be done. The GRI Secretariat prepare work plans, which have to be approved by the TAC and the BoD. The TAC also has to advise the Secretariat on technical issues during the implementation of the plans.-The content prepared has to be presented for Public Comment Period (PCP) – for a minimum of 90 days- and all the stakeholders groups (described before) have to be consulted. -Their inputs are discussed with the TAC, which takes decisions on what has to be developed new or profound reviewed. This decision can be challenged by the BoD. Preparation of new content or profound revisions are tasks of WG, which are composed by the same stakeholders representatives already described.Their recommendations are checked by the TAC and when approved go to another PCP, the inputs are again checked by the TAC, shaped by the Secretariat and finally presented to TAC and SC for final recomendations. To the BoD. The SC role is to advise the BoD on how the stakeholders have been consulted and if are particular aspects, not technical, that should be considered by the BoD.If the BoD agrees, than the Secretariat launches the content for public use.
15. NA notes:Here is a summary of how GRI’s BoD sees this field developing.(read the slide. Pls ask for help if you can’t explain this slide. It is critical to understand G4 objectives)So, when we shape G4, it has to be done in a way that can offer solutions these issues.
16. NA notes:These are the Objectives approved by the GRI BoD in September 2010. They will shape the entire G4 development.MORE REPORTSIf the demand for sustainability disclosure is growing, this means that G4 has to be a tool to help experienced and beginners (the new reporters) to report on sustainability. The guidance has to be clear and user-friendly. BETTER REPORTSIf we need to have better quality of information we have also to start by technically reviewing the current GRI definitions of the guidelines (it will also help to reduce reporting costs, as what has to be reported on should become clearer and should reduce auditing costs as the “space for interpretation” can be reduced)G4 has to be also a process to achieve as much harmonization as possible with international standards for reporting, link to internationally accepted metrics, etcAs GRI reports are becoming a very large publication and the implementation of principles to define report content are not clearly described, G4 should also ask for more “material” focus for GRI reportersIRAs more and more companies are interested in integrating financial and sutainability reports, this is identified as a trend, G4 should offer guidance on how to link these 2 reporting processes, following IIRC guidance.EASIER TO ACCESS REPORT DATAG4 should be offered in a way that also facilitates the link to data search features (such as XBRL)
17. NA notes:The BOD has also approved a timeline for the G4 development, respecting the Due process steps, as described in this slide.(pls be sure you know to explain this slide, otherwise ask for help)The launch date for G4 is May 2013.
18. NA notes:The participants in regions(pls read the slides)
19. NA notes:When we asked the participants which relation they had with reporting, we see that a high level of participants are reporters (line in red).when we asked them to choose one or more way to describe their activity, if not reporter, we received a variety of combinations expressed in blue lines
20. NA notes:These are the points where we found “strong recommendations” which are recommendations from all stakeholder groups in all regions with a score above 80%.They were:There is a strong levels of agreement from all stakeholders around 4 elemenst they all want to see covered as a minimum in a GRI report (which will be presented in the next page)There is a strong agreement that GRI should become more prescriptive in the “sector” levelOver 90 % want G4 to show the link between IR and SRA range of topics were suggested to be included or updated in the guidelines. Here you will se the 6 most scored ones.
21. NA notes:Considering the G4 objectives established by the BoD and the recommendations we received from stakeholders, the G4 project has 6 work streams and this is what I would like to present to you.(pls read the slide)An explanation about each of these work streams will appear in the next slides
22. NA notes:In order to guarantee the technical quality of the guidelines, GRI has created a “technical editing task force” (TETF).The TF goals in to improve the technical quality of the GRI Guidelines, by introducing clear descriptions of what is expected to be disclosed and alignment with well established standard practices.They are not allowed to change the content of existent not new content (proposed by WG). Theirs task is to improve technical quality without changing the content of the texts.The TETF is composed by 4 experts:Alice van de Houve (E&Y auditor, Netherlands)Roger Adams (ACCA, UK)John Purcell (CPA, Australia)Kerstin Simpson (Report preparer and auditor, Australia)GRI published a call for experts for this TF.
23. NA notes:As we said before Working Groups are in charge of recommending to the TAC new content or profound revisions developed by themsolves.The are currently 5 WG focused mainly in the structural elements of the Guidelines. They are:Disclosure on management approachGovernance BoundaryApplication LevelsSupply ChainTo know more about the WG terms of reference and members, pls consult the GRI website.The members are selected after a public call for participants.The WG have to count on the presence of representatives from the GRI stakeholder groups.
24. NA notes:Under the harmonization work stream we take care of 2 different types of harmonization efforts:Creating criteria to include references in the guidelines that improve the quality of reports and link GRI metrics (or definitions) with internationally accepted onesCheck general agreement of the G4 with international accepted reporting related guidance such as UNGC, OECD, etc.The Secretariat and he TAC are working on these issues.NA notes:It is also, part of the “harmonization efforts” the task of keeping the G4 guidance aligned with IIRC current and future development.As we have received the request from the BoD and stakeholders to offer guidance on the link between IR and SR processes, and as IIRC will not have finalized the process for internationally defining the IR concept and framework by the time of launch of g4, GRI will prepare content based on current IR reporting practice on this topic.More to be announced soon.
25. NA notes:There is a 4th work stream called G4 on-line.This work stream’s goal is to offer G4 in a user friendly web base format.GRI does believe that this is a strategic part of the project which will help to scale up as well as to facilitate the access of reported information.
26. NA notes:GRI plans to use the just launched GRI XBRL taxonomy for G4.This will enable GRI tagged reports to be easily accessed by companies managers and information users in a cheap and easy way.
27. NA notes:Finally, there is a 6th work stream which will tackle how to improve and amplify the GRI guidance for sectors.As expressed in the first PCP and many other consultations, there is a general understanding from GRI stakeholders that there is considerable international agreement that material topics are better expressed by sector, if there is a request for specific type of information which can only be defined usefully per sector.To build on this direction GRI will start inviting internationally
28. NA notes;Just to say that the elements you find in the G3 Guidelines will e also in G4 but in a different shape
29. http://www.globalreporting.org/GRIReports/GRIReportsList/