What is GRI?

The current standards date from 2021 and are built in three layers. The Universal Standards apply to everyone: GRI 1 Foundation sets the rules of the game, GRI 2 General Disclosures covers who you are and how you are governed, and GRI 3 Material Topics covers how you decided what to report on. Sector Standards apply if one exists for your industry. Topic Standards — GRI 305 for emissions, GRI 403 for occupational health and safety, and so on — apply to the topics you determined to be material.

GRI’s defining feature is that it is written for a broad audience, not only investors. It asks about your impact on the world. IFRS S1 and S2 ask the mirror question: how sustainability issues affect your financial prospects. Both are legitimate; they are simply different questions.

GRI is voluntary. Nobody enforces it. Its authority comes from being the common language — if a customer asks for "a GRI report", they mean a document whose content index they can navigate without learning your house format.