Sustainability reporting has become a truly global phenomenon with GRI-based reports coming from over 60 countries around the world and a global network focused on the vision of creating a set of Guidelines that will work for any organization, anywhere in the world.

Yet even as people pursue the vision of a global set of guidelines, everyone also recognizes that sustainability is very much about a time and a place and a community. This leads to many practical questions about how to make reporting both global and local at the same time. How do you relate the GRI Guidelines to local policies, rules, and regulations? How do you reflect on cultural differences? How do you ensure that issues of particular importance to a particular country are captured in sustainability reports? How do you understand performance in the context of particular places and locations?

GRI has initiated the concept of National Annexes as a way to create a space within the GRI portfolio to help address some of these questions. However, while the questions may be clear, the answers are not! Therefore, all interested parties are invited to engage in a brainstorming process to share their views on the scope and form of National Annexes.

The brainstorming will include the following steps: