Climate & Company joins forces with global standard-setting body GRI

We are proud to announce that Climate & Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the internationally recognised body that provides sustainability reporting standards, services and tools. The partnership is set to advance the role of corporate reporting to unlock a sustainable future.  

In their cooperation, Climate & Company and GRI aim to increase the adoption of international sustainability reporting standards, including the GRI Standards, throughout the value chain – enabling informed decision-making by companies, investors and other stakeholders.    

The partnership with GRI underlines Climate & Company’s commitment to bringing more transparency into the impact that companies’ activities have on our societies and the environment and to ensure that reporting standards work at an international level.  

By signing the Memorandum of Understanding, Climate & Company and GRI declared their shared intention to 

• work together to explore opportunities to support the international adoption of ambitious and aligned sustainability disclosure standards
• work towards the effective implementation of those ambitious and globally aligned disclosure standards by working with intermediaries, policymakers and network firms
• support the positive effects of disclosure standards along value chains, driving informed decision-making towards a more sustainable future.

“We are proud to join forces with one of the most established and impact-driven international standard-setters in the field of sustainability reporting. It is a true milestone for us to advance global reporting standards together with such an experienced partner as GRI – with joint initiatives and events that provide guidance for change-makers and create bridges for decision-makers at international level. We now look forward to put this commitment into action, for example through joint activities at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference COP29 in Baku”, said Dr. Theresa Spandel, Senior Analyst and expert on disclosure at Climate & Company.

The partnership was launched at the recent New York Climate Week in September 2024. It is underpinned by a joint 2-day stakeholder workshop in Brussels in June 2024 which brought together regulators, decision-makers and funders at EU level to discuss reporting standards. As their next step, GRI and Climate & Company are planning to co-host an event on the challenges and opportunities of climate reporting at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku in November.

Background 

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a non-profit organisation that works towards a sustainable global economy by providing sustainability reporting standards. It pioneered and developed a comprehensive Sustainability Reporting Framework that is widely used around the world. GRI maintains a comprehensive set of globally adopted impact reporting standards, which enables organisations to measure and report their economic, environmental, social and governance performance. Next to that it engages on a global scale in capacity building initiatives for a wide variety of stakeholders.  

Climate & Company is a non-profit global sustainable finance think tank. Climate & Company links policy making, the financial industry, the real economy and academia to support, amongst others, the uptake of sustainability reporting and ambitious sustainability disclosure standards, is providing strategic policy advice and contributes to making regulatory standards work in practice.

Further information

• Website of Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
• Research Paper: Comparative Analysis of Upcoming Disclosure Standards: Key Steps to Raise Ambition – and the case of deforestation
• Event recording: Climate & Company International ESG Disclosure Conference 2022, featuring inputs by Eelco van der Enden, CEO of GRI, and Climate & Company

Photo (from left): 

Peter Paul van de Wijs, GRI

Theresa Spandel, Climate & Company

Camila Corradi Bracco, GRI