A new collaboration between the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) aims to streamline sustainability disclosure.
On Monday, the two standards organizations announced a “collaborative workplan” aimed at companies that use both SASB and GRI reporting standards.
“SASB and GRI understand that the sustainability disclosure landscape can appear complicated,” the two groups said in a joint release. “For companies that use both standards, the reporting effort can be high.”
As part of their collaboration, the organizations will provide materials by the end of this year explaining how the two reporting standards can be used together.
SASB’s standards are designed to identify sustainability-related risks and opportunities that are likely to affect a company’s balance sheet, operating performance and risk profile.
GRI standards focus on a company’s economic, environmental and social contributions toward sustainable development.
In a statement, Janine Guillot, CEO of SASB, said Covid-19 has put a spotlight on environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns.
“In a post-Covid world, companies will increasingly be expected to disclose their performance on a range of ESG topics,” Guillot said. “The pandemic has demonstrated that so-called ‘non-financial’ information can indeed highlight material financial implications.”