A while back I published an overview of the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards Exposure Draft. Well, now, the Standards are no longer in draft form. They are in real-live-downloadable-usable-bloggable format. Not an awful lot has changed since the Exposure Draft. The main thing is GRIs optimism that this makes GRI a more welcome player at the high-stakes tables where governments, regulators and policy-makers play. As a guideline-maker, GRIs legitimacy was apparently not grounded enough to have equal voice. As a standard-setter, GRI has come of age and has the vote.
For corporations who transition to GRI Standards, though, the changes probably represent:
- an administrative headache
- a change of language yet again
- a fear of greater scrutiny
- a fear that a price-tag will soon be placed on use of the Standards
- an opportunity to influence the Standards development
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