Linking GRI and IRIS

GRI and IRIS have created a document to enable impact investors to aggregate and compare standardized performance information across their portfolios in order to align disclosure efforts, and to ease the reporting burden for organizations that use the IRIS catalog of metrics and the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. This publication shows how the GRI G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines (G4 Guidelines) and the IRIS 3.0 catalog of metrics (IRIS metrics) are linked, improving the consistency and comparability of sustainability data, and making corporate reporting more efficient and effective.

Informed investment decision-making
“GRI has always encouraged investors to involve themselves in the global debate on the need for more ESG information and strongly believes that public reporting has an important role to play in further fostering this trend”, says Michael Meehan, Chief Executive at GRI. “Reliable information and credible standardized public reporting is a needed basis for sound impact investment decision-making, as is a critical mass of relevant and comparable data presented in an accessible way. This GRI and IRIS linkage guide reinforces the compatibility of the two frameworks, and ensures consistency for organizations using both methods for reporting.”

“We see this joint publication as an important step to enable the impact investment community to leverage the wealth of economic, environmental and social performance and impact information, that is made available in a standardized format by thousands of GRI reporters on a yearly basis”, says Bastian Buck, Director Reporting Standard at GRI.

“Businesses can use this document to increase the quality of their reporting and decrease the burden of reporting similar information in multiple different frameworks”, says Amit Bouri, President and Chief Executive Officer, GIIN. “Investors can translate between IRIS and GRI, allowing them to aggregate and compare performance across their portfolio. By showing these linkages, we also increase the value of impact measurement, which at the core promises more effective delivery of goods and services to beneficiaries, better management and effectiveness of impact organizations, and more reliable information for investors, which generates additional commitments of capital to high-impact investments.”

The new linkage guidance can be downloaded for free in the GRI Resource Library.