AMSTERDAM: The Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) believes environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting
should converge with financial reporting by 2020.
This was one of two goals set by GRI chief
executive Ernst Ligteringen on the first day of the Amsterdam
Global Conference on Sustainability and Transparency.
The GRI goals over the next decade are:
- Environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting should
become a general practice to help markets and society take informed
and responsible decisions; - ESG reporting and financial reporting need to converge over the
coming decade. GRI recommended that a standard for integrated
reporting should be defined, tested and adopted by 2020.
Ligteringen said that by 2015 all large and
medium-sized companies in Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) countries and some emerging economies should
be required to report publicly on their ESG performance and be held
to account if they decline.
Integrated reporting
committee
The GRI also announced it is working with
leading global organisations in financial markets, accounting,
corporate responsibility, ESG reporting and civil society to
establish an International Integrated Reporting Committee.
The committee’s purpose will be to promote
integrated reporting and to facilitate an effort to create
integrated reporting standards.
