Global Reporting is a non-profit international organization located in Amsterdam devoted to the development and dissemination of globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. These Guidelines are conceived as tools to help companies in their process of evaluating their performance in the economic, environmental, and social fields and have already been adopted by more than 700 companies around the world.

GRI and SME from a Latin American perspective

Although the GRI standard is widely accepted by North American and Western European companies, its applicability is put under question when it comes to Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) and companies from developing countries.

Isabel Roser, author of a Guide on Corporate Social Responsibility in SMEs and specialist in sustainable development, said in an interview that SMEs, when compared to large multinationals, have certain features (proximity, local impact, regular personal relationship with the interested parties and with their local environment, among others) that place them in a favorable position to reorganize their activities in terms of CSR. Despite their great potential for sustainable development, SMEs often have either fewer resources to carry out CSR actions or no resources adapted to their needs and specificities.  In a recent interview, the Spanish consultant Aurora Pimentel commented about the GRI Guidelines: “When SMEs consult the GRI Guidelines, they think they don`t comply with any of the required items. However, a company does not stop being responsible solely because it has not produced a report or developed for instance an explicit family/work policy”.

In view of these specific concerns, Global Reporting launched in November 2004 a tailor-made handbook for SMEs: High 5!  The High 5! handbook is a flexible manual that provides SMEs with a five-step guiding process to incorporate social and environmental criteria to their business activity.

On the other hand, some people believe the GRI Guidelines do not always match the business reality outside Western Europe and North America. Pimentel said in this respect: “I believe the GRI Guidelines could be improved since one of their problems, at the formal level, is that they are too Anglo-Saxon and companies are not only of an Anglo-Saxon origin”. To illustrate this point, Pimentel mentioned her experience when assisting a company in the development of a Sustainability Report. According to the guidelines, they were supposed to consider the number of people from ethnic minority groups working for the company.  “This item makes sense in the case of the United States but not in Spain”, she explains. “The fact that a company does not have a Discrimination Policy does not mean it discriminates”.

Despite criticism, thanks to its team’s continuous updating and reviewing efforts, the GRI Guidelines have been widely accepted and implemented worldwide by numerous companies. The new G3 Guidelines will be easier to apply and will include, among other things, an improved set of indicators, which will be reduced to 79 against the former 97. This decision is the result of an effort to unify and simplify the guide while making it more flexible.  For more information, visit the G3 new Web site and get details on the launching process.