General Reporting Notes

Data Gathering

Feasibility Assessment

The process of defining report content will result in a set of topics and Indicators on which the organization should report. However, practical challenges such as the availability of data, the cost of gathering it, the confidentiality of information, privacy or other legal concerns, the reliability of available information, and other factors, may result in a legitimate decision not to disclose certain information. Where material information is omitted, the report should clearly indicate this and the reasons why.

Data Aggregation and Disaggregation

Reporting organizations will need to determine the level of aggregation at which to present information. This requires balancing the effort required against the added meaningfulness of information reported on a disaggregated basis (e.g., country or site). Aggregation of information can result in the loss of a significant amount of meaning, and can also fail to highlight particularly strong or poor performance in specific areas. On the other hand, unnecessary disaggregation of data can affect the ease of understanding the information. Reporting organizations should disaggregate information to an appropriate level using the principles and the guidance in the reporting Indicators. Disaggregation may vary by Indicator, but will generally provide more insight than a single, aggregated figure.

Report Form and Frequency

Definition of a Sustainability Report

A sustainability report refers to a single, consolidated disclosure that provides a reasonable and balanced presentation of performance over a fixed time period. Stakeholders should be able to directly access all of the report information from a single location, such as a GRI content index. Other publications should not be referenced as the information source for a GRI Standard Disclosure Item (ex., a Performance Indicator) unless the means for a stakeholder to directly access the information is provided (e.g., a link to a specific web page or the page number of the corresponding publication). There is no minimum length for a report using the GRI Framework as long as the organization has properly applied the Guidelines and Framework documents it has chosen to use.

Medium of Reporting

Electronic (e.g., CD-ROM) or web-based reporting and paper reports are appropriate media for reporting. Organizations may choose to use a combination of web and paper-based reports or use only one medium. For example, an organization may choose to provide a detailed report on their website and provide an executive summary including their strategy and analysis and performance information in paper form. The choice will likely depend on the organization’s decisions on its reporting period, its plans for updating content, the likely users of the report, and other practical factors such as its distribution strategy. At least one medium (web or paper) should provide users with access to the complete set of information for the reporting period.

Frequency of Reporting

Organizations should define a consistent and periodic cycle for issuing a report. For many organizations, this will be an annual cycle, although some organizations choose to report biannually. An organization may choose to update information on a regular basis between the issuing of consolidated accounts of performance. This has advantages in terms of providing stakeholders with more immediate access to information, but has disadvantages in terms of comparability of information. However, organizations should still maintain a predictable cycle in which all of the information that is reported covers a specific time period.

Reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance could coincide or be integrated with other organizational reporting, such as annual financial statements. Coordinated timing will reinforce the linkages between financial performance and economic, environmental, and social performance.

Updating Report Content

When preparing a new report, an organization may identify areas of information that have not changed since the prior report (e.g., a policy that has not been amended). The organization may choose to only update the topics and Indicators that have changed and to re-publish the Disclosures that have not changed. For example, an organization may choose to reproduce the information on policies that have not changed and only update its Performance Indicators. The flexibility to take such an approach will depend in large part on the organization’s choice of reporting medium. Topics such as strategy and analysis and Performance Indicators are likely to show changes each reporting period, while other topics such as organizational profile or governance may change at a slower pace. Regardless of the strategy used, the full set of applicable information for the reporting period should be accessible in a single location (either a paper or web-based document).

Assurance

Choices on assurance

Organizations use a variety of approaches to enhance the credibility of their reports. Organizations may have systems of internal controls in place, including internal audit functions, as part of their processes for managing and reporting information. These internal systems are important to the overall integrity and credibility of a report. However, GRI recommends the use of external assurance for sustainability reports in addition to any internal resources.

A variety of approaches are currently used by report preparers to implement external assurance, including the use of professional assurance providers, stakeholder panels, and other external groups or individuals. However, regardless of the specific approach, it should be conducted by competent groups or individuals external to the organization. These engagements may employ groups or individuals that follow professional standards for assurance, or they may involve approaches that follow systematic, documented, and evidence-based processes but are not governed by a specific standard.

GRI uses the term ‘external assurance’ to refer to activities designed to result in published conclusions on the quality of the report and the information contained within it. This includes, but is not limited to, consideration of underlying processes for preparing this information. This is different from activities designed to assess or validate the quality or level of performance of an organization, such as issuing performance certifications or compliance assessments.

Overall, the key qualities for external assurance of reports using the GRI Reporting Framework are that it:

• Is conducted by groups or individuals external to the organization who are demonstrably competent in both the subject matter and assurance practices;

• Is implemented in a manner that is systematic, documented, evidence-based, and characterized by defined procedures;

• Assesses whether the report provides a reasonable and balanced presentation of performance, taking into consideration the veracity of data in a report as well as the overall selection of content;

• Utilizes groups or individuals to conduct the assurance who are not unduly limited by their relationship with the organization or its stakeholders to reach and publish an independent and impartial conclusion on the report;

• Assesses the extent to which the report preparer has applied the GRI Reporting Framework (including the Reporting Principles) in the course of reaching its conclusions; and

• Results in an opinion or set of conclusions that is publicly available in written form, and a statement from the assurance provider on their relationship to the report preparer.

As indicated in Profile Disclosure 3.13, organizations should disclose information on their approach to external assurance.