The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) today announced that has begun working with leading socially responsible investment (SRI) firms from around the world to update and simplify the method by which companies can communicate their environmental and social performance.  Nine of the world’s leading SRI firms have welcomed the move in a joint statement and GRI is now calling for involvement from others in shaping the process through which companies report on their sustainability performance.

The goal is to enable companies to provide their sustainability information in a format that can be more easily gathered and enhance the speed and ease of communication with investors. The GRI is relying on the use of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) taxonomy, already used for financial information, to pursue this goal. XBRL is a list of electronic tags organized into a single set.

Most information today moves in a digital format. However, sustainability information provided by companies, however, has largely remained in print.

Report preparers and users have much to be gained by moving environmental and social performance information into the wider digital flow of information. This has already started with increasing use of web-based reporting. However, there is even more potential to be unlocked by enabling people to put their specific information into a widely-accepted digital format that can also give readers more flexible access to the contents of reports. This will create opportunities to make the research process faster and also open new possibilities to leverage the internet to get information to stakeholders.

"Consistent tagging of sustainability reports has the potential to help overcome today's key problem of data comparability," said Meg Voorhes, head of ESG Research at RiskMetrics Group. "We look forward to helping develop the XRBL taxonomy and believe it can benefit our research for investors and streamline reporting for companies."

Stephanie Maier, Head of Research at UK-based Ethical Investment Research Services (EIRIS) said: “This initiative from GRI is to be welcomed for its potential to increase efficiency in communication between companies and those of us who analyze environmental, social and governance issues on behalf of responsible investors. Ultimately both investors and companies will benefit from this streamlined approach in communicating corporate sustainability performance."

The output of the project will be a second version of the taxonomy that can potentially reduce the time needed to respond to many of the basic information needs of sustainability report readers.

Sean Gilbert, GRI Technical Director, said: “It is GRI’s vision that reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance by all organizations is as routine and comparable as financial reporting.  Our work on XBRL taxonomy brings that vision closer to becoming reality and to opening the door to new approaches to reporting information that leverage the strength of technology.”

Companies interested in shaping the development of the G3 XBRL taxonomy are invited to contact Sean Gilbert at GRI.  GRI is particularly seeking companies who are currently using the Guidelines to test the taxonomy and engage in developing the second version