Sustainability is critical to the strategy of leading companies. These days, you can’t afford to ignore it or even worse, to fake it.  The terms “sustainability” and “sustainable development” are used somewhat interchangeably. They generally mean the ability of society to meet present needs without destroying the ability of future generations to meet their needs. Unsustainable development, on the other hand, is when society focuses on meeting immediate needs without concern about damage caused to other people or the environment. Unsustainable development leads to conflict, inequalities, social instability, and environmental degradation.

You will often see the word “impact” used when discussing sustainability. According to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an organization on the forefront of sustainability reporting, “impact” means: “Effect the organization has or could have on the economy, environment, and people, including on their human rights, which in turn can indicate its contribution (negative or positive) to sustainable development.” 

One of the first steps of your organization’s sustainability strategy should be to identify and assess your impacts. This includes both positive and negative impacts. Impacts are often categorized into environmental, social, governance, and economic topics. Each of these topics includes metrics that should be tracked as a way to show your progress or lack of progress related to everything from waste to board diversity to anti-corruption training. Professional, credible, and high-quality sustainability reporting follows specific principles for tracking and reporting on these topics.
There is no single way and no single authority for sustainability reporting. This leads to some confusion. More and more often, folks are being asked to produce reports or data about their organization’s sustainability without being given guidance on how to do it.

There are multiple ways to proceed with sustainability reporting as no one method or framework is used globally. There are multiple frameworks that somewhat overlap or work hand-in-hand. Some of the most widely used are the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TFCD). The European Union (EU) has corporate sustainability regulations and in 2024 the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission adopted final rules for climate-related disclosures.

When beginning with reporting, it can be helpful to use the GRI Standards, for the following reasons:
o They are the most widely used framework, adopted by 78% of the 250 largest companies in the world and 68% of the 100 largest companies in over 50 countries, according to GRI.
o They can be used by any organization – regardless of size,geographic location, industry, revenue, etc.
o They integrate with other widely-used standards and frameworks such as SASB, TCFD, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
o They are modular and so, generally speaking, you can choose to use sections that are the most pertinent for your organization.