The Global Reporting Initiative Has a Mission to Develop Global Essay

The Global Reporting Initiative Has a Mission to Develop Global Sustainability Reporting Guidelines for Voluntary Use by Organis - Essay Example The specific Initiative has been proved particularly valuable leading to the increase of the power of sustainability as related to organizational reporting. At this point, the following issue has appeared: which can be the actual value of the information provided through the reporting rules used in the context of GRI. The specific issue is examined and evaluated in this paper. Emphasis is given on the value of the above information for the firms’ shareholders. Reference is made, as an example, to four firms listed in FTSE 100, aiming to show that GRI can be highly valued by a firm’s shareholders, even if there is no previous involvement of a particular organization in similar initiatives. It is made clear that firms are urged to produce the specific type of information under the pressure to respond to the demands of different parties; the adoption of GRI rules by competitors can also lead firms to participate in the specific scheme. 2. Global Reporting Initiative 2.1 Ke y points of the Initiative As noted above, the key aim of the Global Reporting Initiative is to urge organizations to use sustainability-reporting rules (Global Reporting Initiative 2012). GRI is ‘a non-profit voluntary organization’ (Global Reporting Initiative 2012) that produces such rules. These rules are voluntary, meaning that organizations are not obliged to adopt them. However, it has been proved that these rules can help organizations to improve their relationship with their shareholders who seem to value the relevant information, as incorporated in each organization’s annual reports. In order to understand the increasing pressure on companies for adopting the reporting guidelines of GRI, it would be necessary to refer to sustainability reporting, as an activity related to the operations of organizations in different industries. According to GRI, sustainability reporting is ‘the practice of measuring, disclosing, and being accountable to internal a nd external stakeholders for organizational performance towards the goal of sustainable development’ (GRI rules, p.3). The framework of sustainability reporting, as promoting by GRI, is presented below in Figure 1. It is clear that for GRI there are two key parts of sustainability reporting: the rules on which the reporting will be based and the content of the report (GRI rules, p.3). Figure 1 – Sustainability Reporting under GRI (source: GRI rules, p.3) Using the protocols and principles suggested by GRI an organization should incorporate in its annual report, three different types of disclosures, entitled as ‘standard disclosures’ (GRI rules, p.4) in Figure 1 above. These disclosures include: ‘strategy and profile, management approach and performance indicators’ (GRI rules, p.5). These disclosures could be further analysed as follows: a) the strategy and profile disclosures showing the firm’s key strategies and profile, as related to the organizational performance, b) the key managerial decisions for handling various organizational issues can be also used for understanding organizational performance; this idea is promoted through the management approach disclosures; c) the ‘economic, social and environmental performance of each organization’ (GRI rules, p.5) need to be also presented to the stakeholders; the relevant information is provided through the third type of disclosures, the performance indicators disclosures. For responding to the needs of these disclosures, organizations need to produce