19 November 2013
- The GRI G4 Guides emphasise materiality or relative importance. This will help companies focus on their economic, environmental and social impact
- Inés García-Pintos, Cecabank's head of Social Investment and Innovation, believes that it is "a step in the right direction"
The next generation of Guides for the preparation of Sustainability Reports from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the G4 Guides, will be launched in Madrid on 19 November.
The presentation of the new Guides, which were produced as a joint effort between Cecabank and KPMG, will offer companies and organisations a general introduction to the G4 Guides. It also offers the opportunity to attend a roundtable of experts in the field. Attendees will have the chance to ask questions and share perspectives with their counterparts.
GRI guides are the most widely used framework in the world for the preparation of sustainability reports.They enable all businesses and organisations to report on economic, environmental, social and governance performance. In the latest version, the G4 Guides have been revised and improved to reflect major current and future trends in the preparation of sustainability reports. This version was first announced at the Global GRI Conference held in May 2013.
Ernst Ligteringen, CEO of GRI, says that "material information on sustainability can help companies to adapt. It also responds to changes in the demands of markets, investors and regulators to achieve more sustainable and intelligent business models. This is in addition to enabling a better strategic decision-making process".
Sustainability Reports
By placing greater emphasis on materiality or relative importance, the G4 Guides will help organisations that draw up reports. According to Ligteringern, they will help "to concentrate on the economic, environmental and social effects that really matter to businesses." At the same time, releasing information materials "inspires confidence, and improves a company's reputation”.
"This event is an opportunity for Spanish businesses and organisations to discover first-hand the new features and improvements of the G4 Guides. They will be gain a better understanding of the implications of the renewed approach to materiality. They will also explore what the changes to the G4 Guides will mean for professionals in the field."
Inés García-Pintos, Head of Social Investment and Innovation at Cecabank remarks, “it is important that the reporting process centres around the ESG impacts relevant to a business for all companies and all sectors. This information should also be specific, clear, and transparent for users. G4 is a step in the right direction.”
José Luis Blasco, Partner in charge of Climate Change and Sustainability at KPMG Spain, who also led the translation of the new guidelines into Spanish, said “Over 80% of the top one hundred companies in Spain produce these types of reports. The majority of them using the GRI standard. The guidelines are as long-standing as the most advanced standards. The new version of the guidelines offers an opportunity to draw up reports more simply, with more comprehensive management, and most importantly, produce reports that are more interesting and useful to readers».
The event will be held at Cecabank's Auditorium in Madrid, at c/Caballero de Gracia 28. To register, go to the GRI website and sign up in registration.
About the GRI G4 Guidelines
- Besides improving the importance and quality of independently-produced sustainability reports, the G4 Guidelines will be a powerful tool for generating information about sustainability that can be used in comprehensive reports.
Other key improvements of the G4 Guidelines are greater ease of use and better accessibility for people writing reports for the first time, as well as alignment with other important global frameworks, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the United Nations Global Compact Principles, and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
- The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) promotes the use of sustainability reports as a way for organisations to be more sustainable and thus contribute to a sustainable global economy.
Its mission is to make producing sustainability reports a regular practice. GRI publishes its guidelines for producing sustainability reports to give all companies and organisations the opportunity to report on their economic, environmental, and social performance, and their governance.
GRI is a non-profit organisation with a network of multiple interest groups; thousands of professionals and organisations from different sectors, groups and regions, are involved in its activities.
For more information go to the GRI website: www.globalreporting.org.
