Halina Szejnwald Brown Teodorina Lessidrenska Clark University, USA

1. Global Reporting Initiative As a Global Institution? Halina Szejnwald Brown Teodorina Lessidrenska Clark University, USA Martin deJong, TU Delft, Netherlands

2. Assumption: information disclosure is good • Mobilizes societal actors: Political action Market mechanisms • Self-evaluation • Better social discourse • Better policies • Necessary for accountability

3. Key stakeholders of a reporting system

4. 1997: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) • Aspired to harmonize-clarify-subsume other reporting systems, internationally • Voluntary • Global • Social, environmental, economic performance • Multistakeholder • Quantitative and qualitative indicators

5. Impacts of GRI on sustainability performance? Impossible to demonstrate causal relationship

6. Our Research Questions • Is GRI becoming a stable institution? • Does it promote institutional innovation toward sustainability?

7. Institution • System of shared values, norms, beliefs about how the game is played • Provides validated standards for behaviors • Stable & Self-sustaining

8. Roots of GRI • (1970 - ) Social movements for human rights and social justice: • socially responsible investing and consumer activism • (1970 - ) Corporate responsibility and accountability movement: • Codes of non-financial conduct, transparency, certifications • (1990 - ) Global corporations as partners: • WBCSD, Int. Chamber of Commerce, Rio 1992, Alliances with NGOs OUTCOMES • Voluntary codes of conduct, environmental and sustainability reports • Increasing need for information

9. GRI Founders’ Vision:A Tool -- An Institution • Standardize & unify non-financial reporting systems • Emulate standard financial reporting guidelines • Create inclusive multistakeholder discourse • Via continuous revisions of Guidelines • Frame discourse on norms of conduct • By companies and other actors • Create language • Facilitate a race to the top • Quality of reports • Performance level • Create Public Good

10. Indicators of Institutionalization • Mutual awareness of common enterprise • Increased interactions among participants • Uptake of GRI by reporters and report-users • New practices in existing organizations • New firms, organizations emerge • New professions emerge • New language evolves • Visible on public agenda • Influential supporters and critics • New competitive pressures around participation and performance

11. The First 8 Years

12. GRI Timeline Move to Amsterdam Sectoral Supplements Structured Feedback Process Second Guidelines G2 Johannesburg Idea Born Third Guidelines G3 GRI Public Début, London Conference Sept 2002 1997 March 1999 November 2000 Dec 2002 October 2006 June 2000 2003 2004 2005 March 2002 May 2002 Inauguration at UN in NY First Guidelines G1 GRI Board

13. GRI Sector Supplements

14. Which Standards/Forums are Most Influential on Business Practice?

15. GRI in policy statements, guidelines, regulations • European Union Framework on CSR • Official statements from Johannesburg • United States EPA • Australian, Japanese, UK guidelines • French law requiring social and environemntal reporting • Dow Jones Sustainability Assessment Criteria • Investor Responsibility Research Center Guidelines • Association of Chartered Public Accountants • Social Investment Research Analysts

16. Anchored major turnarounds in companies’ philosophy and conduct (Nike) • New professions (social investment research analyst)

17. Concerns

18. GRI Uptake Today: 880 officially registered reporters from 57 countries 880

19. What critics say • Insufficiently instrumental • Too many indicators – addressed through the G3 • Cumbersome process – a global challenge • Unclear indicators – resolved in G3 • Data not verified - addressed through G3/evolving role of external verification • Insufficiently cross-comparable – depends on uptake/too early stage • Too instrumental • No explicit discussion of sustainability – a global challenge • No explicit discussion of norms of behavior – beyond the GRI mission • Inadequate information for activist users – a global challenge • Inadequate information for some investors – addressed through G3 • Competitors for funding – a global challenge • Too pro-business – depends on funding and the speed of non-business uptake • Neglect of multistakeholder dialogue – addressed through G3 • Not enough readers!!

20. Formidable Challenges • Attract business participation • Bring everybody to table • Get funding • Assure future continuous process • Stay ideologically independent • Emulate financial reporting guidelines • Indicators of sustainability performance • Being and staying a public good

21. Risky Strategic Trade-offs • Tailored promises to participants • Inconclusive discussion on fundamental values • Guidelines as perpetual work in progress • Ambitious indicators despite obvious difficulties ahead • Initial distance from governments and separation from Ceres

22. RESULT: Internal tensions among the GRI stakeholders • No full consensus on shared vision • Inconsistent expectations • Comprehensiveness vs. efficiency • Comprehensiveness vs. simplicity • Resources inadequate for the task • Needing large constituency vs. ideological independence

23. Initial Answers to Research Questions (Work in Progress) • Is GRI becoming a stable institution? • Unclear • Does it promote institutional innovation toward sustainability? • Yes

24. Non-financial reporting is here to stay • Old institutions innovate: • ISO 26,000 (materiality, stakeholder pr.) • Accounting profession • Language for evolving field of Accountability and CR Management

25. The field of Corporate Responsibility Management and Accountability

26. Open Questions • Creating a tool and institution: Compatible? • Creating public good: Possible in the absence of government participation?