Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has reached a milestone by attaining a total number of 50,000 reports uploaded on its the Sustainability Disclosure Database (SDD) as of 12 October, 2018. The SDD is an online application for companies to register their sustainability reports.
Companies can upload different types of report on the SDD platform, and the upload reports would be mainly categorised into three different types, which are GRI Reports, Citing-GRI Reports and Non-GRI reports. The difference between the 3 types of reports is that GRI Reports are usually reports adhering to the GRI standards with a GRI Content Index; Citing-GRI Reports are reports based on the Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G4, G3.1 or G3) without a GRI Content Index, as well as reports published after 1 July 2018 which use the G4 Guidelines; Non-GRI reports are reports that do not adhere to the GRI Framework or Guidelines, but mention a lot about sustainability in environmental, social and economic aspects.
Other features for categorising the uploaded reports include the adherence level of the reports which shows to what extent did companies apply GRI Framework and Standards to their report, the status of the Application Level declaration for GRI Reports which tells whether the reports have undergone a checking procedure by GRI or third-party, and countries of origin of the reports.
The SDD platform brings various advantages to different parties. For companies, it is clear that registering their reports to a free and open database can increase exposure at local, national and international levels. For other stakeholders, they can search for the reports of companies in different sectors and industries with the user-friendly platform, and it is convenient for researchers to make use of this database to carry out more research and analyses regarding sustainability.
Apart from uploading reports by companies themselves, they are also welcomed to seek help from the GRI Data Partners all over the world. In Hong Kong, Alaya Consulting is honoured to be the exclusive GRI Data Partner on a pro-bono basis since 2015.
Link to the database: http://database.globalreporting.org/register-report
