Understanding impact: new collaboration commences between GRI and IFVI

Two global organizations committed to enabling businesses to contribute to a just and sustainable future, through a deep understanding of their impacts, have announced the start of a new partnership.

GRI has been the champion of impact reporting for over 25 years, with the GRI Standards the world’s most widely used framework for sustainability reporting. Meanwhile, the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (IFVI), launched in 2022, builds on the frameworks and protocols of GRI and existing standard-setters to develop the next level of sustainability information – the monetary valuation of impacts, also called impact accounting.

Together, GRI and IFVI aim to make sustainability data as accessible, actionable and comparable as financial data. Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), GRI and IFVI have agreed to:

• Collaborate on building market uptake of each other’s methodologies, approaches and standards;
• Mutual promotion of each organization’s research, thought leadership, events and other activities to build capacity and expertise;
• Joint stakeholder engagement, such as seminars and roundtables on sustainability reporting and data availability;
• Align fundraising activities through joint funding proposals;
• Jointly collaborate on capacity building initiatives, for example in relation to GRI’s Sustainability Innovation Lab.

Given the strong alignment between the missions of GRI and the IFVI, which both emphasize the crucial value of accountability on impacts, it is clear that the two organizations share common interests and goals. I am delighted, therefore, to formalize and deepen our collaboration through this MoU. Unlocking open access to sustainability data will empower companies, investors and other stakeholders to strengthen transparency in the supply chain, driving informed decision-making towards a more sustainable future. Through strategic collaboration and mutual support, GRI and IFVI will work together to make this a reality.

Eelco van der Enden, CEO of GRI

IFVI was founded to build on the critical work of organizations like GRI to develop a globally applicable and comprehensive impact accounting methodology for the public good. We’re thrilled to be working closer with GRI and continue the work of our peers in increasing collaboration and alignment in the pursuit of our shared goal of a just and sustainable economic system.

T. Robert Zochowski, President & CEO of IFVI

Photo credit © GRI