EFRAG and GRI confirm alignment and plan for digital harmony
The European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) have issued a statement confirming a high level of interoperability between their respective sustainability reporting standards.
The GRI Standards were an important input for EFRAG in developing the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), in keeping with requirements under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) to adopt a double materiality approach and to take account of existing standards. ESRS and GRI definitions, concepts and disclosures regarding impacts are therefore either fully aligned, or, where full alignment is not possible due to the content of the CSRD mandate, closely aligned. The ESRS allow the inclusion of additional disclosures, for example using the GRI Standards, meaning that companies can comply with both the ESRS and GRI Standards through a single report.
Our readers will be interested to note that EFRAG and GRI are currently considering how to enhance their technical cooperation in the future – and that means XBRL. “In particular to simplify reporting processes, the two organizations intend to work on a digital taxonomy… for their respective standards. Shared disclosures tagged under the ESRS digital taxonomy and the GRI digital taxonomy could be cross-referenced to allow for a streamlined digital reporting exercise on the preparer’s side.”
