Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

GRI is an international and independent non-profit organization that promote economic,

environment and social sustainability. It was founded in Boston, US on 1997, which lie under
Tellus Institute and the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES)
initially and become independent at 2001.
At that time, CERES had pioneered a framework of environmental reporting at around 1990
and as a result, the GRI had given responsibility to develop the framework. At 1998, a Steering
Committee was set up to expand the scope of reporting to social, economic and governance
issue. Since then, GRI had become a Sustainability Reporting Framework with the Reporting
Guideline as its core.
The main function of GRI is to help business entities identify and report the information
regarding environment, social, economic and governance in a clear and comparable manner.
The first global framework for comprehensive sustainability reporting guideline (G1) was
launched in 2000. The second version (G2) was then released at the World Summit for
Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. In 2006, the third generation(G3) of
guideline was released after the involvement of more than 3000 experts from business, civil
society and the labour movement in the development process. The G3 marked the multi-
stakeholder approach as the core activities of GRI. In 2013, GRI launched the fourth generation
(G4) framework which offers Reporting Principles, Standard Disclosures and Implementation
Manual for the preparation of sustainability reports by any organizations.
In 2016, the first global standards of sustainability reporting that developed by Global
Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) was launched by GRI. Although this standards has
replaced G4 Guidelines, but their main concepts and disclosure are based on G4 Guidelines,
with a clearer requirements, flexible structure and simpler language. The new standards have
3 main material topics of economic, social and environment impacts. In each main topics, there
are sub-topics that must be addressed
The tree main material topics are in the chart below.
As we can see at the chart above, before the 3 main specific topics as mentioned before, the
standards also provide Universal Standards (GRI 101,102,103). The Universal Standards is the
starting point of GRI Standards that explain the requirements for preparing a Sustainability
Report, how the GRI Standards can be referenced, how to disclose contextual information
about an organization and how an organization manages a material topic.
On the other hand, the 3 main specific topics are Economics (GRI 200), Environment(GRI 300)
and Social (GRI 400). The subtopics are listed in the table below:
Economic Environmental Social
Economic performance Materials (GRI 301) Employment (GRI401)
(GRI201)
Market presence (GRI202) Energy (GRI302) Labour management
relations (GRI402)
Indirect economic impacts Water and effluents Occupational health and
(GRI 203) (GRI303) safety (GRI 403)
Procurement practices Biodiversity (GRI 304) Training and education
(GRI204) (GRI404)
Anti-corruption (GRI205) Emissions (GRI 305) Diversity and equal
opportunity (GRI405)
Anti-competitive behaviour Waste and effluents Non-discrimination
(GRI206) (GRI306) (GRI406)
Environmental compliance Freedom of association and
(GRI307) collective bargaining
(GRI407)
Supplier environmental Child labour (GRI408)
assessment (GRI308)
Forced or compulsory labour
(GRI409)
Security Practice (GRI410)
Rights of indigenous people
(GRI411)
Human rights assessment
(GRI412)
Local Communities
(GRI413)
Supplier social assessment
(GRI414)
Public policy (GRI415)
Customer health and safety
(GRI416)
Marketing and Labelling
(GRI417)
Customer privacy (GRI418)
Socioeconomic compliance
(GRI419)
Bursa Malaysia Sustainability Reporting Guide
Malaysia launched its Sustainability Framework in year 2015 to replace the CSR Framework
and then amended its “Listing Requirement”. Under Chapter 9: “Continuous Disclosure” of
listing requirement, a listed company is required to provide a statement regarding sustainability
matters.

Reference 1.1

As shown above, a listed company must provide a narrative statement of its material economics,
environmental and social risks and opportunities. The requirements are guided by
Sustainability Reporting Guide issued by Bursa Malaysia that based on the GRI Guideline are
automatically compliant. The principles used in the Guide is also based on the guidance from
GRI guidelines, such as principle of materiality. While GRI guideline is more like a standard
to deal with specific area of matters, the Guide issued by Bursa is more like a step-by-step
guideline to Malaysia companies to help them understand the entire process of sustainability
statement preparation. The shortcoming of the Guide is each part of the required process only
discuss through general statements, but the companies can understand clearer about the
statements through case studies/real life examples provided under each statements. On the other
hand, GRI standards provided very specific requirements on reporting disclosure.

Under Sustainability Reporting Guide, there are 4 major considerations for organisation to
embed sustaintiability in its business, as the chart below:

Reference 1.2

Tone from the top

To ensure sustainability effort bring impacts to entire organization, the highest level of
leadership (I.e.. Board) must show commitment by setting strategic direction for the
organization. Normally, the leadership will show their commitment by integrating the
sustainability principle to the company’s vision, mission or core values. They might also
include sustainability considerations to their risk management framework.
Identifying and prioritising material sustainability matters
There are 5 steps to apply the consideration:
 Determine Objective and Scope - Geographical and organisational boundaries, value
chain
 Identify and categorise sustainable issue - Create an initial list of relevant
sustainability issues by referring to internal source (eg. board, risk assessment) and
external source (eg. regulations and standards), and then categorise them to different
heading such as customer privacy, energy etc.s
 Do stakeholder engagement - Engage with different stakeholders provides the
company a better understanding on how the activities impact economy, society and
environment.
 Do prioritisation - Determine which sustainable matters are material and set the level
of importance to business and stakeholders.
 Process review - The outcome of materiality assessment need to be approved by
Board and need to reconsider at least annually.
Managing material sustainability matters
The company should make response to the sustainability matters by:
 developing policies and procedure
 implementing action plan
 setting indicators and goals
 implementing new, or changing existing systems to report, analyse data requirements
associated with each material sustainability matter.

Communicating and providing

It is very important to communicate what the company has done to the stakeholders. The
company need to comply with the disclosure obligations, as prescribed in Listing Requirement
in communicating sustainability performance to the market. The disclosure will be discussed
later in the report.