G3 Guidelines in XBRL

Downloads: *        G3 Guidelines in XBRL Taxonomy  (Beta version 1.0. xls) (XBRL editor software required)   Get involved: *   Contact GRI to register your interest.

Most information today moves in a digital format. When searching for information on organizations or products, people often go to the internet. Companies use extensive ERP systems to manage information across units and across countries. Researchers and analysts typically have services that provide packages of reports and data sets and other information via terminals. Consumers are even turning to web-enabled devices like cell phones to answer whatever questions they have, whenever they have them.

Sustainability information, however, has largely remained in print, but report preparers and users have much to be gained by moving environmental and social performance information into the wider digital flow of information. This has already started with increasing use of web-based reporting. However, there is even more potential to be unlocked by enabling people to put their specific information into a widely-accepted format that can also give readers more flexible access to the contents of reports.

Introducing XBRL

This movement towards interactive reporting and data has already begun in the financial sector and is currently focused around the buildup of XBRL. XBRL stands for eXtensible Business Reporting Language and was originally developed for transmitting financial information.

XBRL offers a way to put an electronic “tag” on numbers or other qualitative information in the report. That way, computers can recognize the information select it, analyze it, store it, exchange it with other computers and present it automatically in different ways. 

The main benefits of using the XBRL include:

- Greater reliability and consistency of information;

- Faster data collection, aggregation, sorting analysis for in-house purposes;

- Enhanced ability to customize reporting to meet the specific needs of information seekers such as investors and analysts; and

- Compatibility with financial reporting systems and requirements (e.g. SEC, IFRS, Basel II).

What does this mean in practice?

In practice, a report preparer would use an existing taxonomy to place XBRL tags on specific contents of their report. These tags could be placed in a web page, a PDF file, or any of several other standard file formats.

If, for example, a user wanted to focus specifically on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, XBRL would enable a user to immediately find the "GHG emissions"  information in the document, extract it, and present it as raw data, analyze it based on the user’s predefined interest (e.g. amount of GHG emissions per product). The user could apply this to multiple reports to compare emissions information across different reports.

GRI’s XBRL Project

In 2006, GRI released the first version of XBRL “taxonomy” for the G3. A “taxonomy” simply means a list of tags organized into a single set. GRI is now convening a group of investors and companies to identify how to further improve the taxonomy such that it can become a routine tool to support company-investor exchange of information;

The output of the project will be a 2^nd version of the taxonomy that can potentially reduce the time needed to respond to many of the basic information needs of investors.

Get Involved

GRI is seeking companies to participate in the project. The company will need to make two commitments:

1)     Use the current taxonomy to tag as much of their most recent G3 report as possible; and

2)     Participate in teleconferences (and possibly 1-2 meetings) to discuss how to further improve the taxonomy.

If you would like to participate in the project or are interested in more details on the, please contact Bastian Buck or Sean Gilbert 

More Information on XBRL

 *   XBRL website

 *  XBRL podcasts