GRI to put into effect Revised Universal Standards as of January 2023

27 / 12 / 2022

By Marwa Nassar - -

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) will put into effect Revised Universal Standards as of January, 2023. Sustainability reporting standards set the highest level of transparency for impacts on the economy, environment and people.

All GRI reporters will be required to use these key standards for information published on or after this date.

As announced in October 2021, the revision of the Universal Standards marked the most significant update to the GRI Standards since they launched six years ago. With a focus on making reporting more relevant and consistent changes included full alignment with intergovernmental instruments, as set by the UN and OECD, for due diligence on sustainability impacts, including those on human rights.

GRI’s reporting services give feedback on elements of one’s sustainability report and will help companies achieve clearly presented and referenced reported information using the Universal Standards 2021, two content index services are available; Essentials Service which focuses on the disclosures that cannot be omitted under the Universal Standards 2021, and Advanced Service which reviews one’s report’s GRI content index as a whole, covering all disclosures and omissions.

If one also uses the Sustainable Development Goals in his sustainability reporting, there is an additional check available on the links between the SDG’s and the GRI Standards.

Serving this end, the GRI Academy offers a course on Transitioning to the GRI Standards 2021 update for a high-level overview of the differences between reporting with the GRI Universal Standards 2016 and the GRI Universal Standards 2021.

Translations of the Universal Standards have so far been published in Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Portuguese and Japanese. Further translations in Indonesian will be made available by year end, with those in Arabic, French, German and Italian to follow by the end of January.