An FT article on 2 April carried sweeping claims by Hans Hoogervorst, chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), that ‘greenwashing is rampant’ in sustainability reporting. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the leading independent sustainability standards body, categorically refutes this assertion. Mr Hoogervorst’s arguments misrepresent the role of standard setters such as GRI, and […]

In the last two decades, sustainability reporting has gone from an exercise for the largest companies to a necessity to attract investors and meet local and international regulation. But the main benefit of sustainability reporting remains that companies best understand their impacts and can improve their bottom line along with the world around them. Read […]

I have always believed that business has the power to help us solve society’s most pressing challenges. That’s why I worked in corporate responsibility functions in the private sector for more than 20 years. It’s also the reason I became the Chief Executive of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), developer of the world’s most widely […]

The transparency that comes from corporate responsibility reporting can help us create a better world. That was my message to the people I met at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual meeting in Davos. As a first time WEF participant, I was amazed at the concentration of leaders, from all over the world, who are […]

The headline to this article is a sobering assessment, but it’s accurate. In the last issue of ESG Magazine, I wrote about how we can get more investors engaged with the SDGs. In that piece, I gave a simple description of the divide between how investors typically want to receive environmental, social and governance (ESG) […]

When we think about companies and the work they do, we often lose sight of a simple fact: a business is just a collection of people. And, all groups of people tend to build a culture, a collective way of viewing the world. It may seem like an obvious point but it’s all too often […]

After two decades working as a CSR professional and just three months leading GRI, I’m more convinced than ever that transparency is a powerful force for change. But I’m also just as convinced that we are still far from end goal: sustainable development. We must evolve sustainability reporting in order to get from here to […]

GRI and the UN Global Compact have partnered on a project: The Reporting on the SDGs Action Platform In September 2015, all 193 Member States of the United Nations set a very ambitious and necessary agenda for achieving a better future for us all by adopting a set of 17 global goals: the Sustainable Development Goals […]

It is my great pleasure to be visiting South Korea as part of my first tour of the Asia Pacific region as the Chief Executive of Global Reporting Standards (GRI). I am visiting the region in my first months on the job because Asia is our fastest growing market for sustainability disclosures. The number of […]

Ernst Ligteringen’s sudden and unexpected death on June 15th was a devastating shock for me and my colleagues at GRI, the sustainability non-profit that Ernst led for more than 12 years. My heart goes out to Ernst’s wife Maria Jose, his children and his grandchildren, who are bearing the brunt of this tragedy. Exactly one […]