GRI Partnership to Help Responsible Companies

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has announced a partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in a bid to to give greater guidance and support to companies worldwide so they can conduct their business responsibly and report on their sustainability performance.

The GRI says the partnership will help companies make greater use of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework, and bring increased coherence and consistency to their sustainability and transparency efforts.

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework are based on and promote the same internationally agreed standards and principles for responsible business conduct, including social and human rights and economic and environmental matters.

The GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework provides guidance on how to measure sustainability performance and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises a benchmark to assess such performance.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) released this week establishes a three year program to encourage companies to use both the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework.

The MoU also outlines the way GRI and OECD can work together to make use of the synergies between the two and strengthen cooperation in other of mutual interest.

The OECD says the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises is the most comprehensive corporate responsibility instrument developed by governments in existence today.

The OECD Guidelines cover all major areas of business ethics and are addressed to all the activities of multinational enterprises operating in or from the 42 adhering countries.

GRI provides one of the world’s most widely-used framework for producing sustainability reports. The GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework enables large and small companies, Not for Profit organisations and government bodies worldwide to assess their sustainability and disclose the results. GRI’s key goal is to make sustainability reporting mainstream.

Mervyn King, Chairman of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Board of Directors says the partnerships will help GRI’s mission to mainstream environment, social and governance reporting worldwide. He says by working with OECD, they can help responsible multinational enterprises lead the way to a sustainable future.

For more information visit http://www.globalreporting.org or www.oecd.org/daf/investment/guidelines