The Global Reporting Initiative

As “green investing” is getting more popular everyday, importance of the reports which we rely upon for these green investments are getting under more scrutiny. But sustainability reports issued by the companies has some notable flaws regarding both regulational and applicational issues:

1- Sustainability reports are voluntary in many countries including the world's greatest energy users America and China. (You may never know how much of “interesting” material are recycled/or not at Colgate-Palmolive or DuPont. It would be good though.)
2-Even if you have a report in your hands with full of information about a firm's policies on various issues, it still might not be a legitimate conclusion. That's because, most of the (%99) “sustainability reports” are not audited by external, independent parties.

So, as investing in those (so called) green companies grows, these issues must be clarified. But how and by who? In such an age, it must be easy for those firms to feel the pressure on them, from their “green investors” and other environmentalists. A framework, setting out principles and rules for measuring and reporting economic, environmental, and social performance, developed by an initiative based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, looks like the ultimate solution to the issues addressed above. The Global Reporting Initiative, which is a collaborating center of the United Nations Environment Programme, has managed to gain the voluntary adoption of more than 1000 organizations around the world, (none from Turkey!) including some major global brands. This initiative is not in favor of only the investors of course, volunteered companies also benefit from this by reducing cost of sustainability, protecting their brands and differentiating themselves in the marketplace.

It looks like that the GRI has got an answer to that infamous credibility problem about corporate images on subjects like environment as well as human-rights and workforce. If they could guard their corporate structure for independence and their funding approach, the initiative will be quite a reference for any puzzling issue related with corporate sustainability. I strongly suggest you to go have a look at their web-site for further information.