Niger’s IHS Towers sole African firm to join GRI’s BLF on SDGs reporting

03 / 05 / 2021

By Marwa Nassar - -

Niger’s IHS Towers is the sole African company to join a new Global Reporting Initiative(GRI) program – the Business Leadership Forum (BLF) on Corporate Reporting as a Driver for Achieving the SDGs

The new GRI program to enhance corporate reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by making it more relevant to stakeholders has commenced, bringing together senior representatives from multiple international companies.

The Business Leadership Forum on Corporate Reporting as a Driver for Achieving the SDGs will help companies use transparency to increase their contributions to national and global SDG commitments.

Over the next two years it will deliver a series of quarterly online events that incorporate a mix of expert guidance, peer learning and engagement with key stakeholder groups, with a focus on raising the quality and relevance of SDG data.

The companies to have joined the BLF so far represent a cohort of businesses with a passion for sustainability. The members are based in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America and cover a diverse range of sectors – spanning energy to healthcare, and textiles to telecoms.

The companies include ABB Group (Switzerland), Baxter International (USA), CEMEX (Mexico), Cigna (USA) , Enel Group (Italy), Eni (Italy), Ferrero Group (Luxembourg), Fujitsu (Japan), Grupo Bimbo (Mexico), Inditex (Spain) , JTI (Switzerland), Mosaic (USA), Prysmian Group (Italy), Salesforce (USA), and City Developments Limited (Singapore).

The first BLF lab takes place in May, when members will be joined by stakeholder representatives from sustainability benchmarking and rating agencies. Further sessions this year will bring together corporate reporters with participants from governments, investment institutions and regulatory bodies.

There is still limited capacity for new members to join the BLF and access the unique opportunities to develop as a corporate sustainability leader.