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July 16, 2009

GRI Touts 46% Increased Use of GRI Guidelines In Sustainability Reporting

The Global Reporting Initiative now hails more than 1,000 organizations worldwide that have issued and registered sustainability reports in 2008 based on the GRI G3 Guidelines, which is the highest number recorded. This is a 46 percent increase of registered reporters versus 2007.

GRI offers a complete online report database that provides information about the registered reporting companies from 1999 to 2009.

The GRI G3 Guidelines set out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report on their economic, environmental and social performance.

The majority of companies that reported sustainability performance based on GRI G3 guidelines are located in Spain, beating the United States, which ranks No. 2, according to GRI. Europe is home to 49 percent of registered reporters, followed by Asia at 15 percent, North America at 14 percent, Latin America at 12 percent, Oceania at 6 percent and Africa at 4 percent.

Here is a list of the top ten countries that have shared their reports with GRI:

• Spain: 128
• U.S.: 100
• Brazil: 64
• Australia: 56
• UK: 56
• Japan: 49
• Germany: 41
• South Africa: 41
• Italy: 38
• Canada: 36

A key finding of the latest tally indicates that many companies listed in the world’s leading stock markets now issue GRI-based sustainability reports including 64 percent of Germany’s DAX 30, 48 percent of France’s CAC 40, 22 percent of the UK’s FTSE 100 and 13 percent of the U.S. S&P 500.

Still, companies in the major stock market indices reporting on their sustainability performance using the common framework provided by GRI are still in the minority, with the exception of Germany’s relatively small DAX (30 companies), said GRI.

To increase the quantity and quality of organizational sustainability disclosure, the Board of Directors of the Global Reporting Initiative issued the Amsterdam Declaration on Transparency and Reporting this year in which they called on governments to introduce policy requiring companies to either report on their sustainability performance or explain why they won’t.

So far, in Sweden all state-owned companies are now required to publish annual GRI-based sustainability reports, and policies are either in place or are in the process of being developed in Denmark, Norway and China to increase their sustainability reporting.

If your business needs help producing a sustainability report, click here for a two-part series that shows you how to achieve a successful sustainability report.

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