Strengthened collaboration between GRI and TNFD
Plans for new resources on nature-related corporate reporting
The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) are deepening their collaboration to support the corporate reporting needs of market participants globally.
Over the past two years, TNFD and GRI have worked closely to support the development of each other's respective recommendations, standards and guidance, notably GRI input into the TNFD Recommendations published in September 2023; and TNFD input into the recently published GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 standard, which was updated to align with the TNFD Recommendations.
Responding to feedback from both TNFD Forum member organisations and GRI Community members (as well as other organisations using or considering GRI standards and disclosures aligned to the TNFD Recommendations), the TNFD and GRI have announced plans for further implementation and capability building support:
A TNFD-GRI interoperability mapping document will be published in Q2 2024, providing a detailed overview of alignment between the TNFD disclosure recommendations and metrics and the GRI Standards, including GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024. Illustrative joint case studies and guidelines on the links between nature related dependencies, impacts, risks and opportunities. This will support the use of the TNFD’s LEAP assessment, which already incorporates the approaches to materiality guidance from GRI (for impact) and the IFRS (for risks and opportunities). Both organisations also underscored their ongoing commitment to drive towards further alignment and interoperability through collaboration with other standards organisations and interested regulatory authorities, as the global sustainability reporting landscape on nature-related issues continues to advance.
We are fully committed to working with partners to improve alignment in the sustainability reporting landscape. This further collaboration between GRI and TNFD is significant because it comes at time of increased demands from regulators, investors and other stakeholders for companies to demonstrate transparency for their impacts on nature and biodiversity as well as related risks and opportunities. The good news is that the thousands of organizations globally that already report their material nature-related impacts through the use of GRI’s standards are now well-positioned to start making disclosures aligned to the TNFD recommendations – and we are pleased to see that over 360 organisations have already committed to do so. Our ongoing collaboration with TNFD will enable other GRI reporters to start their TNFD aligned reporting.
Eelco van der Enden, CEO of GRI
The first decision of the Taskforce when it was formed was to build on what already existed from both the science on nature and biodiversity, and the corporate reporting standards arena. GRI’s experience over several decades on impact assessment and reporting has been instrumental in informing the approach and recommendations now published by the TNFD and we are delighted by the high level of alignment achieved. As market participants across over 45 countries start to assess and report on their nature-related issues aligned with our recommendations, they have asked us for further guidance and examples on how to do so in a manner consistent with their existing GRI impact analysis and reporting. We look forward to continuing close collaboration with GRI to develop that practical implementation guidance for market participants.
Tony Goldner, Executive Director of TNFD
Collaboration between the TNFD and GRI over the past two years has ensured a high level of alignment between the TNFD Recommendations and GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 with respect to:
Language and terminology across the respective guidance; Alignment on the five direct drivers of nature and biodiversity loss, as defined by the IPBES; The TNFD LEAP approach, incorporating the GRI impact materiality approach, An organisation’s approach to assessing the proximity of its sites to ecologically sensitive areas, as defined by TNFD; and Alignment on approaches to measure changes to the state of nature and biodiversity.