Trends in GRI reporting: Value, Digital, and Ethics

First, the good news: Today’s corporate citizenship reports are more engaging, relevant, and are communicating the positive environmental, social, governance, and business value that companies are creating. A corporate citizenship report was once a nice to have; now approximately 93 percent of the Global 250 issue them.

Reports are meant to be tools for tracking and reinforcing desired performance, yet, even with the proliferation of more and better reporting, we have seen the opposite. Collectively carbon dioxide emissions have increased, the divide between rich and poor has grown larger, and record fines have been administered to companies for unethical business actions.

With this backdrop, The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is exploring what lays in store for corporate citizenship reporting with the “Reporting 2025: An International Dialogue” project. The project has been launched in conjunction with the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship, SAP, and Enel to “...promote an international discussion about sustainability trends in the next decade.”

The project has recently released the first analysis paper focused on trends that CSR practitioners and NGO stakeholders have identified. The next phase of the project will be focused on corporate stakeholders. The first group sees trends around the following themes:

1. Value creation and destruction
2. Going digital
3. Ethics and reputation

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