Animal Stock photos by Vecteezy
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) have advanced the field of sustainability reporting with the release of their joint interoperability mapping resource. This initiative aims to streamline the alignment between GRI’s standards and TNFD’s recommendations, providing a more cohesive framework for companies to disclose their environmental impacts and better manage nature-related risks and opportunities.
The landscape of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations has become increasingly complex in recent years. Since 2011, there has been a 155% increase in ESG regulations worldwide, adding up to 1,255 new regulations. This surge has posed significant challenges for sustainability professionals, who often find reporting requirements to be overly complex, resource-intensive, and time-consuming.
Recognising these challenges, GRI and TNFD have collaborated closely over the past two years to create a guidance document and correspondence table. These resources are designed to help GRI’s global reporters align with TNFD recommendations and assist TNFD adopters in their sustainability reporting according to GRI Standards.
The interoperability mapping underscores the high level of alignment between TNFD’s disclosure recommendations and GRI’s standards. It highlights consistent nature-related concepts and definitions, particularly the five direct drivers of nature and biodiversity loss as defined by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
GRI’s materiality approach, which focuses on impacts, has been incorporated into the TNFD recommendations. Additionally, the TNFD LEAP approach aids organisations in reporting both impact and financial materiality, providing guidance on identifying significant biodiversity impacts and measuring changes in the state of nature. This alignment ensures that all disclosures in GRI 101 are reflected in the TNFD recommendations, and vice versa, except for those exclusively covering nature-related risk and opportunity identification and assessment.
Bastian Buck, GRI’s chief standards officer, emphasised the importance of this collaboration, stating:
“The ongoing collaboration of GRI with the TNFD has resulted in this detailed mapping tool, supporting thousands of organisations worldwide that already report their biodiversity impacts using the GRI Standards. This resource enables them to seamlessly integrate the TNFD recommendations, allowing for simplified, single-source reporting. GRI and the TNFD will continue to cooperate to prevent the need for double reporting and ensure organisations can transparently and accountably disclose their impacts.”
Tony Goldner, TNFD’s executive director, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the practical support this mapping provides to market participants in their internal assessment and external reporting needs.
Esther An, chief sustainability officer of City Developments Limited and TNFD Taskforce Member, also noted the importance of robust measurement and disclosure of nature-related dependencies and impacts for long-term business resilience:
“Nature risks are business risks that should be measured and disclosed in a more robust manner. Having adopted the GRI 304: Biodiversity (2016) since 2017 and as the first Singapore company to publish disclosures aligned with the TNFD Recommendations in 2024, CDL understands the importance of measuring and managing our nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities for long-term resilience.
“As we look towards adopting the new GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 in our upcoming sustainability reports, we welcome the interoperability between TNFD and GRI to harmonise the global sustainability reporting landscape.”
For investment and stewardship teams, the increasing interoperability of frameworks like GRI and TNFD presents a significant advantage. It simplifies the reporting process, making it easier to obtain accurate, comprehensive data on the environmental impacts of portfolio companies. This, in turn, enhances the ability to make informed investment decisions and engage effectively with companies on sustainability issues.
SI Engage, a platform designed to streamline ESG and non-ESG engagement data for investors and asset managers, can be a valuable tool in this context. By enabling users to plan, track, and report on activities across portfolio companies with minimal effort, SI Engage ensures that fund managers and stewardship teams have access to the high-quality insights they need. This facilitates more effective engagement, driving greater impact and success in sustainability initiatives.
As the global sustainability reporting landscape continues to evolve, the collaboration between GRI and TNFD represents a pivotal step towards harmonising standards and reducing the burden of reporting. For investors and stewardship teams, embracing these streamlined frameworks and leveraging tools like SI Engage will be key to navigating this complex environment and achieving long-term sustainability goals.
