GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) and ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) are the two primary global sustainability reporting standards, often used together for a comprehensive view. GRI focuses on "impact materiality" (how a company impacts the environment/society for stakeholders), while ISSB focuses on "financial materiality" (how sustainability issues affect a company’s financial value for investors).
ISSB is focused on the organization's long term financial survival. GRI is focused on how the organization impacts the world.
The ISSB and GRI have both commented that their respective standards are complementary – for example, entities using the ISSB Standards could choose to also report using the GRI Standards to cover both the financial and impact aspects of their activities.
GRI reporting enables organisations to share their sustainability journey clearly and credibly. Its emphasis on impact—not just financial outcomes—helps organisations: Build trust with stakeholders by showing they take sustainability seriously. Demonstrate accountability with specific, measurable disclosures.
Difference Between GRI and ESG
While ESG focuses on what to improve, GRI helps businesses share their progress clearly and openly. GRI provides clear rules for businesses to share their sustainability actions. ESG checks how businesses perform in areas like the environment, social practices, and governance.
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 "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 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.
How does the GRI work? The GRI standards are divided into three sections: universal, sectors and topics. This is a modular, interconnected system: All organizations use the three universal standards, but they choose the sector and topic standards that are most applicable to their circumstances.
The sustainability standards board ISSB designed these standards to work alongside existing financial reporting frameworks, requiring disclosure of sustainability related risks through four core pillars: governance processes, strategy, risk management and metrics and targets.
Countries around the world continue to adopt the International Sustainability Standards Board's (“ISSB”) disclosure standards. As of June 2025, 36 jurisdictions have adopted or are taking steps to introduce the ISSB Standards into national law.
How many hours are required? The GRI designation requires 60 hours to complete. 48 hours are from our Core Courses. 12 hours are from our Elective Courses.
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.
GRI reporting is not legally mandatory. However: Many sustainability regulations reference or align with GRI. Investors and stakeholders increasingly expect GRI-aligned disclosures.
GRI uses principles such as **accuracy**, **balance**, **clarity**, **comparability**, **reliability**, and **timeliness** to guide the reporting process. Organisations need to ensure that their reports are transparent, accurate, and reflect both positive and negative impacts in a balanced manner.
The Greens stand for a platform centered on four core pillars: ecological sustainability, social justice, grassroots democracy, and peace and non-violence, evolving from environmental movements to advocate for universal healthcare, affordable housing, tackling climate change, and economic fairness, often described as left-wing or eco-socialist. They focus on human well-being, protecting biodiversity, and creating a sustainable society through cooperative, participatory governance.
Specifically, (CS) looks to address five pillars of sustainability: human sustainability, cultural sustainability, environmental sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability.
We define what sustainability means to Keller using the four Ps: planet, covering environmental sustainability; people, covering social sustainability; principles, covering governance; and profitable projects, covering economic sustainability and how we apply sustainability in our work.
The International Organization for Standardization defines the 7 Principles of Corporate Social Responsibility as:
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 3 P's for ESG are People (Social), Planet (Environment), and Profit (Governance), balancing sustainability and business performance together.
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.