Tuesday Nov 26, 2024
Tuesday Nov 26, 2024
Thursday, 7 November 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
By Sarah Hannan
The Global Rating Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines offer reporting principles, standard disclosures and an implementation manual for the preparation of sustainability report by organisations. The G4 standards was released in May this year taking to account the United Nations Global Compact’s (UNGC) global standards for ‘Sustainable Development’ in its entirety.
In a recent discussion with the Daily FT Det Norske Veritas (DNV) AS India Branch National Head – SBE & ACS Services Vadakepatth Nandkumar, UN Global Compact Network Ceylon Ltd. Representative and Director Sutheash Balasubramaniam and UN Global Compact Network Ceylon Ltd. National Consultant and NexGroup Asia Pacific Country Director Rathika De Silva shed light on the importance and the impact GRI G4 sustainability reporting could have in Sri Lankan enterprises.
Nandkumar started off the conversation with a brief introduction to DNV and how it assists businesses to obtain the necessary certifications: “DNV is an independent foundation established in 1864 and has a network of 8,600 employees working from 300 offices around the world. We work with our customers to assure the performance of their products, processes and organisations through certification, assessment and training. Our services also provide organisations the opportunity to identify market advantages, win the credibility from stakeholders and provide both parties a win-win situation. We should not consume and exhaust the available resources but conserve the limited resources that are available by recycling and reusing at every stage. DNV has been communicating the progressions of the enterprises and is focused on introducing GRI – G4 sustainable reporting among large and medium sectors and encourages them to report their progress.”
Corporate sustainability in Sri Lanka
De Silva stated: “Corporate sustainability is taking off in Sri Lanka and Ceylon Tobacco Company was the first institution to get into the list of responsible businesses. As entrepreneurs we are accountable to our stakeholders and people in our region know their rights, be it consumer or investor.”
Nandkumar added: “We cannot work in a reactive environment. Corporate sustainability is not only integrated to the corporate sector, but it is also embedded in the student charters in secondary and terrestrial levels of the education sector. Sustainability is spread across from operational level to the strategic level and it has gone beyond the level of philanthropy. At present, industries have to go to the communities to build their businesses and the importance of corporate sustainability is brought out under the 10 principles laid out by the global compact. Our habits were sustainable during the olden days and industrialisation changed these habits. Now it is time for us to revisit these practices to seek balance with the industry and the environment.”
Elaborating on the focal points Balasubramaniam stated that GRI G4 links up with the UNGC principles 2000 and since its launch has reached out over 8,000 business worldwide. He also reiterated that UNGC is the only agency that links the business entity and has been effective in raising the bar for each of these countries through sustainability reporting.
“Resources need to be readily available to establish a business. Therefore we need to live in harmony with our surrounding environment. We need to make a collective effort to sustain our businesses as well as the biodiversity of our surroundings. To strike this balance, the necessary framework, best practices and value additions need to be in place. There should be an initiator and a reporter in every level and organisation to successfully carry out these initiatives.”
Plan, check, act
“The GRI G4 also enables gap verification assessments in organisations and verifies the assessments through the six quality principles. These verifications provide organisations room to improve and develop. DNV ensures that there is transparency in their reports and conduct workshops for every level so that stakeholders have a better understanding about the sustainability reports that are presented by them,” Nandkumar said, pointing out how the reporting structure is cascaded throughout different tiers.
De Silva asserted that sustainable reporting goes beyond a report: “The GRI G4 sustainability report does not end as a document it allows organisations to focus on their growth targets for two years/five years and achieve these targets by revisiting the submitted reports. This report also provides the company an opportunity to bring their businesses to the international standards which will also be assured and certified by DNV.”
GRI G4 sustainability reporting
Sustainability reporting helps organisations to set goals, measure performance, and manage change in order to make their operations more sustainable. It conveys disclosures on an organisation’s impact – be it positive or negative – on the environment, society and the economy. In doing so, sustainability reporting makes abstract issues tangible and concrete, thereby assisting in understanding and managing the effects of sustainability developments on the organisation’s activities and strategy.
The guidelines have been developed through an extensive process involving hundreds of reporters, report users and professional intermediaries from around the world. G4 therefore offers a globally relevant framework to support a standardised approach to reporting, encouraging the degree of transparency and consistency that is required to make information useful and credible to markets and societies.
G4 sustainability reporting guidelines
Reporting Principles and Standard Disclosure: The first part of the guidelines that contains ‘Reporting Principles,’ ‘Standard Disclosure’ and the criteria to be applied by an organisation to prepare its sustainability report ‘in accordance’ with the guidelines including the definition of terms.
Implementation Manual: The second part of the guidelines contains explanations of how to apply the ‘Reporting Principles,’ how to prepare the information to be disclosed, and how to interpret the various concepts in the guidelines. This includes references to other sources along with glossary and general reporting notes.
Steps to follow when preparing a sustainable report using the above guidelines: Obtain an overview, choose the preferred ‘in accordance’ option, prepare to disclose general standard disclosures, prepare to disclose specific standard disclosures and prepare the sustainability report.
G4 reporting Principles
The reporting principles are fundamental to achieving transparency in sustainability reporting and therefore should be applied by all organisations when preparing a sustainability report. The principles are divided into two groups: ‘Principles for defining report content’ and ‘Principles for defining report quality’.
Principles for defining report content includes stakeholder inclusiveness, sustainability context, materiality and completeness, whereas Principles for defining report quality includes; balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, clarity and reliability.
Standard disclosure
There are two types of standard disclosures: ‘General standard disclosures’ and ‘Specific standard disclosures. General standard disclosures follows strategy and analysis, organisational profile, identified material aspects and boundaries, stakeholder engagement, report profile, governance, and ethics and integrity. Specific standard disclosures follows disclosures on management approach and indicators.
Pix by Daminda Harsha Perera
