Europe – EFRAG and GRI are pulling together on sustainability reporting: In a joint statement, the two institutions confirmed a high level of interoperability between their respective standards.
On September 4, EFRAG and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published a joint statement on the interoperability achieved between the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and the GRI Standards. This was preceded by a meeting of the EFRAG Sustainability Reporting Board (SRB) on August 23, in which further developments of the ESRS were discussed. The draft statement on interoperability between the ESRS and GRI resulting from the SRB meeting has now been approved.
The CSRD requires a double materiality approach and consideration of existing ESG reporting standards. Therefore, the definitions, concepts, and disclosure requirements of the ESRS and the GRI standards are in parts fully aligned and in other parts closely aligned, where a complete alignment of the CSRD requirements was not possible.
EFRAG and GRI also state:
- Existing GRI reporters will be well prepared for reporting under the ESRS.
- In order to prevent the effort of double reporting, companies reporting under the ESRS will be considered as reporting by reference to the GRI Standards.
- EFRAG allows organizations to use the GRI Standards to report on additional material topics not covered by the ESRS – which means that reporting in accordance with both the ESRS and GRI Standards through one report is possible.
Source: EFRAG