The Global Reporting Initiative and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures jointly released a new tool that makes it easier for firms to report their impacts on the environment. It will, therefore, be easy to do the reporting work as businesses will report both GRI and TNFD with the same effort. A partnership between GRI and TNFD has led to a very detailed mapping tool, bringing together their frameworks to help companies avoid spending duplicated time and resources in reporting.
For the past two years, GRI and TNFD have been aligning their reporting guidance by applying the same terminology and definitions based on IPBES. Through this, companies can identify their impact on nature as such, and disclosure is made efficient. The data is more useful and comparable across reports because of reporting with the same concepts and figures.
The new guide finds that a great bulk of information required in the TNFD reports already resides within GRI reports. Much of the information overlaps; therefore, companies reporting with GRI standards need only little additional material to align them with TNFD reporting requirements. The guide has explanations on how those two frameworks work together, thus helping the easier adoption of both sets of guidelines by businesses during their incorporation into the reporting processes of the respective companies.
According to Bastian Buck, GRI Chief Standards Officer, this will work in favor of such collaboration. This mapping tool is the product of years of collaboration between GRI and TNFD. It assists thousands of organizations worldwide in reporting their impacts on biodiversity using the GRI Standards. In such a way, it becomes easier for them to adopt the TNFD recommendations within their reporting, thus assuring reporting with a single source and in a simplified way. GRI and TNFD will continue working together toward avoiding double reporting and the possibility for any organization to disclose its impacts in a transparent and accountable way.
It was Esther An, CDL’s Chief Sustainability Officer, who emphasized the practical benefits stemming from this partnership. “Nature risks are business risks that have to 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 knows very well how important it is to measure and manage our nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities for long-term resilience. As we look forward to the adoption of the new GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 in our future sustainability reports, we welcome the interoperability between TNFD and GRI for the harmonization of the global sustainability reporting landscape.”
Tony Goldner, TNFD Executive Director, welcomed the new tool: “The release of today’s mapping from GRI and the TNFD will further support market participants needing, or wanting to, report on their nature-related dependencies and impacts leveraging GRI Standards and metrics and in line with the TNFD Recommendations. We look forward to continuing to work with GRI to provide clear, practical support to market participants in their internal assessment and external reporting needs.”
This guide therefore represents a real step forward for corporate environmental reporting. Harmonization of the GRI and TNFD frameworks, as indicated above, now more effectively enables companies to identify, manage, and transparently disclose their impacts on nature. Any such collaboration does more than provide ease in reporting; it can also increase the quality and consistency of environment-related data. With sustainability becoming relevant for business, such tools will become indispensable for transparent and accountable reporting.
The new partnership between GRI and TNFD is another milestone toward developing corporate environmental reporting. Producing a harmonized approach makes it easier for businesses to disclose their impacts on nature. Businesses will now save on time and resources with this single tool in measuring their environmental performance effectively.
Source: GRI