Social indicators from Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a well-known international and independent

organization, which has led the sustainability reporting for over two decades. GRI’s main goal is
“helping businesses and governments worldwide to understand and communicate their impact
on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, governance and social
well-being” (GRI, 2019).

To enable a real action on social, environmental and economic related issues, GRI created the
Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), which guarantees the transparency and multi-
stakeholder approach of the GRI. Late on, the GSSB created the GRI Sustainability Reporting
Standards (GRI Standards). Since their creating, these standards have become the “first and
most widely adopted global standards for sustainability reporting” (GRI, 2019)

GRI Standards enable real action to create social, environmental and economic benefits for
everyone, from stakeholders to final users, rooted in the public interest. The main goal of the
reporting is to disclose sustainability actions taken by companies to “inspire accountability, help
identify and manage risks, and enable organizations to seize new opportunities” (GRI, 2019).

To this point, the impact of the GRI standards on the reporting companies has been positive,
helping them to improve social well-being of employees, reducing their environmental damage
and increasing the overall revenue for the company. However, the GRI standards also face a
controversy as these mainly focus on the reporting rather than a high-quality reporting or even
more useful or accountable reporting (McElroy, 2017)

As follows, the GRI standards related to Social Impact (GRI 400 series) are summarized below.
In case you are interested in reading and reviewing the full set of GRI Standards, these can be
downloaded at www.globalreporting.org/standards.

GRI 401 – This section of the report focuses mainly on the practices covering the relationship
between the employee and the employer, extending its coverage along the supply chain and
the suppliers.

 GRI 401/1 – Ask companies to report on numbers of new employees and employee
turnover
 GRI 401/2 – Requires companies to report on the benefits that a full-time employee
enjoys, but not provided to part-time employees.
 GRI 401/3 – Entails companies to report on employee return rate and employee
retention rate after their entitled parental leave.

GRI 402 – This section of the report focuses on how companies should manage certain material
topics, associated impact and stakeholder’s expectation and interest.
  GRI 402/1 – Ask companies to report how they deal with timeline for operational
challenges and how they communicate that to the employees.

GRI 403 – This section of the report focuses on the occupational health and safety of the
employee.

GRI 404 – This section of the report focuses on how companies support their employees on
training and expanding their education.

GRI 405 – This section of the report focuses on equality on salary, for men and women, and the
diversity of employees.

GRI 406 – This section of the report focuses on actions taken regarding incidents of
discrimination within the company or supply chain.

GRI 407 – This section of the report focuses on how companies guarantee their employees the
freedom to form association and collective bargaining.

GRI 408 – This section of the report focuses on how companies deal with risks for incidents of
child labor along the supply chain.

GRI 409 – This section of the report focuses on how companies guarantee their employees that
they will not face risk for incidents of forced or compulsory labor.

GRI 410 – This section of the report focuses on the security personnel and their training to
follow company policies.

GRI 411 – This section of the report focuses on how companies face risks of incident of
violations involving rights of indigenous people.

GRI 412 – This section of the report focuses on how companies make sure that human rights
are protected along the supply chain
GRI 413 – This section of the report focuses on the impact of the company in local communities
and how these are engaged with the company.

GRI 414 – This section of the report focuses on management the social impacts along the supply
chain through their suppliers, as well as the screening of new suppliers.

GRI 415 – This section of the report focuses on the political impact of the company per country.

GRI 416 – This section of the report focuses on the health and safety impacts of company’
products on the customer

GRI 417 – This section of the report focuses on product labeling and accurate information
regarding the product

GRI 418 – This section of the report focuses on how companies ensure customer privacy and
data management

GRI 419 – This section of the report focuses on the compliance of laws and regulations in social
and economic areas.