CDP focuses exclusively on environmental data (climate, water, forests) for investors, while GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) offers a comprehensive framework covering all ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) impacts for a broad stakeholder base. CDP provides in-depth, scored, and audited metrics, whereas GRI emphasizes broad, principle-based, and modular sustainability reporting.
GRI provides the global common language for organizations to report their environmental, social and economic impacts – the GRI Standards. CDP is the global independent disclosure system for companies to measure and manage their environmental impacts.
While IR focuses on integrated reporting of financial and non-financial aspects, GRI provides specific guidelines for sustainability reporting, which can be incorporated into an integrated report.
Frameworks provide principles-based guidance on how information is structured, how it is prepared and what broad topics are covered. Meanwhile, standards provide specific, detailed and replicable requirements for what should be reported for each topic, including metrics.
The global leader for sustainability reporting
Welcome to GRI. For nearly 30 years we have provided the common global language to assess and report environmental, social and economic impacts, as articulated through the GRI Standards – the world's most widely used sustainability reporting system.
The TCFD is one of the most widely recommended and adopted ESG reporting frameworks. It is quite forward-looking, recommending that companies disclose a long-term planning horizon and scenario analysis.
Principles to define report quality: balance, comparability, accuracy, timeliness, reliability, and clarity. Guidance on how to set the report boundary: “Reporting Boundary” enables reporting organizations to define the range of entities represented by the report.
Environmental, Social, and Governance are the three pillars that form the foundation of ESG. The Environmental pillar focuses on a company's impact on the planet, including issues like carbon emissions, energy use, and waste management.
The "Big 4" in ESG standards generally refers to the leading, complementary frameworks: GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) for broad stakeholder impact, SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) for investor-focused financial materiality, TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) for climate risks, and CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) for environmental performance disclosure, often used together for comprehensive reporting, with newer ISSB standards gaining prominence.
The GRI Standards are a modular system comprising three series of Standards: the GRI Universal Standards, the GRI Sector Standards, and the GRI Topic Standards.
The four core types of financial reporting, often called the main financial statements, are the Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, and the Statement of Shareholders' Equity, providing a complete picture of a company's financial health by showing assets/liabilities, profitability, cash movements, and changes in ownership over time, respectively.
Six capitals. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) identifies six categories of capital which help an organisation create value: financial, manufactured, intellectual, human, social and relationship, and natural.
CDP is a leading standard for voluntary environmental disclosure with over 23,000 companies participating each year, representing two-thirds of global market capitalization. CDP reporting requirements vary by industry and company size, but all participating companies must disclose emissions and energy consumption data.
The 7 core principles of sustainability reporting, often derived from frameworks like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), focus on creating credible and useful reports: Materiality, Stakeholder Inclusiveness, Accuracy, Clarity, Comparability, Timeliness, and Reliability (often including Balance, Completeness, and Sustainability Context as key quality factors). These principles guide companies to report on what matters most to stakeholders, ensuring the information is trustworthy, understandable, and helps measure long-term impact.
That's where integrated reporting IR steps in. It combines financial reporting with sustainability reporting, offering a holistic view of an organization's performance. This approach goes beyond traditional methods by highlighting how a company's strategy, governance, and prospects lead to value creation over time.
The 3 P's for ESG are People (Social), Planet (Environment), and Profit (Governance), balancing sustainability and business performance together.
The core of ESG is Environmental, Social, and Governance, but some frameworks add a fourth pillar, often Disclosure, Transparency, or even Economic Performance, to create a holistic view of a company's long-term sustainability and responsibility beyond just profits, covering planet, people, and ethical practices.
The Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) is the widely recognized ESG framework for assessing the sustainability performance of worldwide real estate assets and portfolios.
The 5 Ps of ESG are People, Planet, Profit, Purpose, and Process. Together, they guide businesses to focus on sustainability, ethical practices, and meaningful growth while delivering value to all stakeholders.
The 3 pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. Sustainability is a fundamental approach to addressing current and future global challenges, and not only those related to the environment.
GRI has not resulted in the generation of comparable data sets that enable analysis across companies and sectors; indeed, the reports have very few users. On these counts, GRI has fallen short of the intent of establishing social reporting with the same status as financial reporting.
The Global Reporting Initiative (known as GRI) is an international independent standards organization that helps businesses, governments, and other organizations understand and communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rights, and corruption.
The 2025 GRI Standards include Universal, Sector, and Topic standards, helping organisations like yours disclose environmental, social, and governance impacts clearly and credibly. Key updates include streamlined reporting options — “In accordance with GRI” for full compliance, and “In reference to GRI” for beginners.