GRI Standards
Global Reporting Initiative - GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards · Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), Global Reporting Initiative
The GRI Standards are the world's most widely used framework for reporting an organisation's impacts on the economy, environment and people. They are modular: three Universal Standards that everyone applies, Sector Standards for high-impact industries, and Topic Standards selected against the topics a company has judged material. They are free to download and are named in SGX Practice Note 7.6 as a recognised reporting framework.
What this means in Singapore
GRI is the quiet workhorse of Singapore sustainability reporting. SGX Listing Rule 711A requires every issuer to publish an annual sustainability report, and Rule 711B requires it to describe the issuer's sustainability practices against the primary components on a comply-or-explain basis. Practice Note 7.6 requires the issuer to select a reporting framework, and names the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, the GRI Standards, the SASB Standards and the Integrated Reporting Framework as recognised choices. GRI is by a wide margin the most adopted among SGX issuers, though the specific adoption percentages that circulate in commentary could not be traced to a primary source and should not be relied on.
Why GRI still carries most reports. The mandatory ISSB layer covers climate only, and for most issuers it does not fully bite until FY2028 or FY2030. Everything else a sustainability report contains - workforce, health and safety, community, supply chain, anti-corruption, tax, water, biodiversity, governance - is carried by GRI. For a non-STI issuer below S$1 billion in market capitalisation, the GRI 102 and GRI 103 transition on 1 January 2027 is the nearer-term change, not the IFRS S2 mandate.
One GHG dataset, two frameworks. On 26 June 2025 the GSSB and the ISSB issued a joint statement confirming that an organisation can prepare a single set of Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas disclosures under IFRS S2 and use them to meet the corresponding requirements in GRI 102. Two conditions attach and both are easy to miss: emissions must be measured using the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard (2004), and the report must include cross-references showing where each disclosure sits, as GRI 1 requires. Without both, the equivalence does not hold. The earlier January 2024 interoperability document mapping GRI 305 against IFRS S2 is still usable for reports prepared under GRI 305, but it is written against the 2016 version of GRI 305 and is already partly overtaken.
What IFRS S2 will not cover. Even with equivalence, five GRI 102 disclosures have no IFRS S2 equivalent at that level of detail: 102-1 transition plan, 102-2 adaptation plan, 102-3 just transition, 102-9 GHG removals in the value chain, and 102-10 carbon credits. The carbon credit disclosure is demanding, and it lines up neatly with the International Carbon Credit framework under Singapore's carbon tax: a facility surrendering eligible credits will already hold the registry, vintage and serial-number data GRI 102-10 asks for, though the assessment against eight quality criteria is new analytical work.
Sector Standards to watch. The Financial Services Sector Standard (banking, capital markets, insurance) was scheduled for GSSB approval in September 2026 - effectively now - and Textiles and Apparel in October 2026. Given the concentration of banking, insurance and asset management in Singapore, Financial Services is the single most consequential item in GRI's pipeline for the local market. Singapore-listed agri-food and commodity groups already fall under GRI 13, and energy and commodity traders under GRI 11.
Local support. GRI has run its ASEAN Regional Hub from Singapore since 3 September 2019, covering all ten ASEAN member states. It is the right escalation point for training, GRI Community membership and certified training partner enquiries.
Licensing. GRI permits reproduction of the Standards for information and for preparing a report, but other reuse needs written permission - so link to GRI's PDFs rather than rehosting them.
How the framework works
A different question from the ISSB
GRI and the ISSB ask different questions about the same company. The ISSB asks what sustainability issues could affect the company's prospects. GRI asks what the company's most significant actual and potential impacts on the economy, environment and people are, human rights included. That is impact materiality, and an impact can be significant under GRI long before it becomes financially material under the ISSB. GRI and the IFRS Foundation describe themselves as two pillars of one reporting system rather than competitors. ("Double materiality", meaning both lenses together, is a term of art from the EU's CSRD and ESRS rather than a GRI or ISSB term.)
The architecture
Universal Standards - every reporter applies all three.
- GRI 1: Foundation 2021 - the reporting principles and the nine requirements for reporting "in accordance with".
- GRI 2: General Disclosures 2021 - 30 disclosures, numbered 2-1 to 2-30, across five sections: the organisation and its reporting practices; activities and workers; governance; strategy, policies and practices; and stakeholder engagement.
- GRI 3: Material Topics 2021 - 3-1 process to determine material topics, 3-2 list of material topics, 3-3 management of material topics.
All three became effective on 1 January 2023.
Sector Standards are used when determining material topics and deciding what to report for each. Four are published: GRI 11 Oil and Gas, GRI 12 Coal, GRI 13 Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing, and GRI 14 Mining. All four are now listed as version 1.1.
Topic Standards carry the disclosures themselves. Since the 2021 restructure, new and revised Topic Standards are numbered sequentially from 101 in order of release rather than sorted into the old 200 (economic), 300 (environmental) and 400 (social) series. That is why the revised climate standard is GRI 102, not GRI 305.
How many standards are there? GRI does not publish a headline count and the number moves. The English download page currently offers just over forty individual standards plus a glossary and a zipped full set - three Universal, four Sector and the remainder Topic Standards. Treat any precise figure you see quoted, here or elsewhere, as a snapshot: GRI 304 Biodiversity 2016 has already been removed from the page, and more standards are due to be withdrawn on 1 January 2027.
Reporting "in accordance with"
GRI 1 sets nine requirements. Miss any one and the organisation may only claim to report with reference to the GRI Standards:
- Apply the reporting principles (accuracy, balance, clarity, comparability, completeness, sustainability context, timeliness, verifiability).
- Report the GRI 2 disclosures.
- Determine material topics.
- Report the GRI 3 disclosures.
- Report Topic Standard disclosures for each material topic.
- Provide reasons for omission where a disclosure cannot be made.
- Publish a GRI content index.
- Provide a statement of use.
- Notify GRI (free of charge).
The content index is the load-bearing artefact. Requirement 7-a lists twelve things it must contain, including the statement of use, the title of GRI 1 used, the applicable Sector Standards, the list of material topics, any Sector Standard topics judged not material with an explanation, the reported disclosures and their titles, the source standards, the location of each disclosure, and any reasons for omission. Requirement 7-b adds a linking obligation where the index sits outside the standalone report.
Cross-referencing is expressly permitted: a disclosure can be satisfied by pointing at where the information already lives, such as the climate section of an annual report. This is the mechanism that lets one greenhouse gas dataset serve both an IFRS S2 filing and a GRI report.
The climate transition
The biggest change in years lands on 1 January 2027. GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 and GRI 103: Energy 2025, both published on 26 June 2025, take effect for reports published on or after that date, with early adoption encouraged. On that date GRI 305 Disclosures 305-1 to 305-5 and Requirement 1.2 are withdrawn, GRI 302: Energy 2016 is superseded in full, and GRI 201-2 is withdrawn. GRI 305-6 (ozone-depleting substances) and 305-7 (NOx, SOx and other significant air emissions) survive; GRI has not published a statement on their longer-term fate, and the reasonable inference is that the Pollution project will eventually replace them.
GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 is already live - it replaced GRI 304 and has applied to reports published on or after 1 January 2026.
Pipeline
The GSSB has open projects on labour, economic impacts and pollution, two Sector Standards in the final stages (Financial Services and Textiles and Apparel), and a proposed new standard on digitalisation. Its draft 2026-2028 work programme went out for public comment which closed on 27 March 2026; the GSSB response and final programme were still pending as at 19 September 2026.
Standards in this family
10 documents.
The entry point. It sets the reporting principles and the nine requirements an organisation must meet to claim it has reported in accordance with the GRI Standards.
GRI 1 is short but decisive: the organisation must comply with all nine requirements in its "in accordance with" section. If it does not, it cannot make that claim and may only report with reference to the GRI Standards, which has its own three requirements.
The nine requirements: apply the reporting principles; report the GRI 2 disclosures; determine material topics; report the GRI 3 disclosures; report Topic Standard disclosures for each material topic; provide reasons for omission; publish a GRI content index; provide a statement of use; and notify GRI (free of charge).
The statement of use takes the form: "[Name of organisation] has reported in accordance with the GRI Standards for the period [start and end dates]."
Reporting with reference to is permitted where the organisation cannot meet all nine, or where it uses selected Standards for a specific purpose such as answering a customer questionnaire or meeting a regulatory requirement. GRI expects organisations to move to full "in accordance with" reporting over time.
Effective date. The cover page states 1 January 2023, and the standard is effective for reports or other materials published on or after that date.
Singapore practice point. Many SGX issuers historically claimed "with reference to" while building capability. An issuer that cross-references its IFRS S2 climate disclosures into a GRI content index can still make the full "in accordance with" claim, provided all nine requirements are met - the June 2025 GRI and ISSB equivalence statement expressly contemplates both claim types.
Thirty disclosures about the organisation itself: who it is, how it is governed, how it sets strategy and policy, and how it engages stakeholders.
GRI 2 carries disclosures 2-1 through 2-30 across five sections:
- The organisation and its reporting practices (2-1 to 2-5) - legal form, entities included, reporting period and contact point, restatements, and external assurance.
- Activities and workers (2-6 to 2-8) - activities, value chain, employees and other workers.
- Governance (2-9 to 2-21) - the largest block: governance structure and composition, nomination, chair, the highest governance body's role in overseeing impacts and in sustainability reporting, conflicts of interest, communication of critical concerns, evaluation of performance, and remuneration policies and ratios.
- Strategy, policies and practices (2-22 to 2-28) - statement on sustainable development strategy, policy commitments, embedding those commitments, remediation processes, mechanisms for raising concerns, compliance with laws and regulations, and membership associations.
- Stakeholder engagement (2-29, 2-30) - the approach to engagement and collective bargaining agreements.
Why it matters in Singapore. The governance block does much of the heavy lifting that SGX Listing Rule 711B's primary components ask for - a board statement and a description of the governance structure for sustainability - so a well-built GRI 2 section can serve both. The remuneration disclosures also sit close to the IFRS S2 cross-industry metric on climate-linked executive pay, and are worth preparing together.
Note that a secondary summary describing GRI 2 as having 28 disclosures across four sections is wrong; the standard's own contents page confirms 30 disclosures across five sections.
The standard that decides what the rest of the report contains: how material topics are determined, what they are, and how each is managed.
GRI 3 has three disclosures:
- 3-1 Process to determine material topics - describe the process used, including how the organisation identified actual and potential, positive and negative impacts, and how it engaged stakeholders and experts.
- 3-2 List of material topics - list them, and explain any changes from the previous period.
- 3-3 Management of material topics - for each topic, describe the actual and potential impacts, involvement in them, policies and commitments, actions taken, tracking of effectiveness, and stakeholder engagement.
The four-step process. Understand the organisation's context; identify actual and potential impacts; assess their significance; prioritise the most significant for reporting.
Where the ISSB lens falls short. Running only an enterprise-value materiality assessment will systematically under-identify GRI material topics. The textbook case for Singapore is an upstream labour or biodiversity impact in a regional supply chain that is severe for affected communities long before it becomes a cost, a regulatory exposure or a reputational problem for the listed parent.
Practical approach. Run one materiality exercise that scores each topic on both axes - significance of impact, and significance to enterprise value - then route impact-material topics to the GRI content index and financially material ones into the IFRS S1 and S2 disclosures. Neither SGX Practice Note 7.6 nor the ACRA regime imposes double materiality on Singapore companies; it reaches them indirectly through European parents and customers, and through voluntary GRI reporting.
The operative emissions Topic Standard for reports published before 1 January 2027. Seven disclosures: five on greenhouse gases, two on other air emissions. Disclosures 305-1 to 305-5 are superseded by GRI 102 from 1 January 2027.
| Disclosure | Title | Maps to |
|---|---|---|
| 305-1 | Direct (Scope 1) GHG emissions | Scope 1 |
| 305-2 | Energy indirect (Scope 2) GHG emissions | Scope 2, location-based and market-based |
| 305-3 | Other indirect (Scope 3) GHG emissions | Scope 3 |
| 305-4 | GHG emissions intensity | Intensity ratios |
| 305-5 | Reduction of GHG emissions | Reductions achieved |
| 305-6 | Emissions of ozone-depleting substances | Non-GHG, in CFC-11 equivalent |
| 305-7 | NOx, SOx and other significant air emissions | Air pollutants |
305-1 requires gross Scope 1 in tCO2e; the gases included; biogenic CO2 separately; base year, rationale, base-year emissions and recalculation context; the source of emission factors and global warming potential rates; the consolidation approach (equity share, financial control or operational control); and the standards, methodologies, assumptions and tools used.
305-2 requires gross location-based Scope 2 and, if applicable, market-based Scope 2, with the same supporting disclosures. Both must be reported where the organisation has operations in markets that provide product or supplier-specific data.
305-3 requires gross Scope 3, the activities included, and an upstream and downstream breakdown.
Status. The live GRI 305 PDF carries a cover banner stating that Requirement 1.2 and Disclosures 305-1 to 305-5 have been revised and will be superseded by GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 with effect from 1 January 2027, and that earlier adoption of GRI 102 is encouraged. GRI 305's own effective date remains 1 July 2018, which is how you can tell 305-6 and 305-7 live on - unlike GRI 302, whose cover now reads "effective date: until 31 December 2026".
Singapore angle. 305-7 lines up with NEA air-emission obligations for manufacturing and petrochemical operations. 305-2 dual reporting is where Singapore renewable energy certificate purchases show up.
The replacement for GRI 305-1 to 305-5, published 26 June 2025 and effective for reports published on or after 1 January 2027, with early adoption encouraged. Ten disclosures covering transition and adaptation planning, just transition, targets, all three scopes, removals and carbon credits.
Section 1 - topic management
- 102-1 Transition plan for climate change mitigation - actions across short, medium and long term, aligned with scientific evidence.
- 102-2 Climate change adaptation plan - absorbs the content of the withdrawn GRI 201-2.
Section 2 - topic disclosures
- 102-3 Just transition - impacts on workers and communities.
- 102-4 GHG emissions reduction targets and progress - absolute and intensity targets, reported separately for Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Where base-year emissions are recalculated, the previously reported base-year figure must also be disclosed.
- 102-5 Scope 1, 102-6 Scope 2, 102-7 Scope 3, 102-8 GHG emissions intensity, 102-9 GHG removals in the value chain, 102-10 Carbon credits.
What is genuinely new versus GRI 305:
- The global warming potential basis is prescribed - 100-year values from the latest IPCC assessment report, not merely disclosed.
- Gas-by-gas breakdowns, but only where required. 102-5-b requires Scope 1 broken down by all seven gases in both metric tonnes and tCO2e. 102-6-b requires the same for location-based Scope 2 across three gases only - CO2, CH4 and N2O. For Scope 3 the gas-by-gas split is a recommendation, not a requirement; what 102-7-b requires is a breakdown across each of the 15 GHG Protocol Scope 3 categories in CO2e.
- Biogenic CO2 reported separately for Scope 1 (owned and controlled sources), Scope 2 (electricity use) and Scope 3 (upstream and downstream, broken down by the 15 categories). Biogenic non-CO2 gases sit inside the gross figures.
- Exclusions are explicit - removals, GHG trades and avoided emissions are excluded from the gross figures; removals move to 102-9 and credits to 102-10.
- One consolidation approach across all three scopes.
- 102-10 carbon credit traceability - credits cancelled split between removal and reduction projects, with project name and ID, type, cancellation serial number and date, vintage, host country, issuing registry, purpose of cancellation, and an assessment against eight quality criteria.
GRI 102 refers to the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (2004) for measurement and uses the Scope 3 categories from the 2011 Corporate Value Chain Standard. GRI's FAQ confirms there is no minimum number of GRI 102 disclosures.
Published alongside GRI 102 on 26 June 2025 and effective 1 January 2027. Five disclosures replacing GRI 302: Energy 2016 in full. Its energy figures feed directly into the GRI 102 emissions disclosures.
Section 1 - topic management
- 103-1 Energy policies and commitments
Section 2 - topic disclosures
- 103-2 Energy consumption and self-generation within the organisation
- 103-3 Upstream and downstream energy consumption
- 103-4 Energy intensity
- 103-5 Reduction in energy consumption
How it feeds GRI 102 (per GRI's own FAQ): 103-2-a energy consumption flows into gross Scope 1 under 102-5; 103-2-b purchased or acquired electricity, heating, cooling and steam flows into gross Scope 2 under 102-6; and 103-3-a upstream and downstream value-chain energy flows into gross Scope 3 under 102-7. The two standards have to be implemented together - you cannot build GRI 102 without the GRI 103 dataset.
Supersession. GRI 103's own text does not mention GRI 302. The supersession is stated on the GRI 302 PDF, whose banner says GRI 302: Energy 2016 will be superseded by GRI 103: Energy 2025 with effect from 1 January 2027, and whose cover now reads "effective date: until 31 December 2026". Unlike GRI 305, GRI 302 is superseded in full.
Singapore angle. 103-2 self-generation covers rooftop and floating solar, and on-site cogeneration on Jurong Island. 103-3 upstream and downstream energy is where imported low-carbon electricity contracts and data-centre tenant energy sit - an increasingly live question as Singapore's electricity import programme develops.
Replaced GRI 304 and has been in effect for reports published on or after 1 January 2026. Eight disclosures built around the mitigation hierarchy, location-level reporting and access and benefit-sharing.
Section 1 - topic management
- 101-1 Policies to halt and reverse biodiversity loss
- 101-2 Management of biodiversity impacts - requires the mitigation hierarchy: avoid, minimise, restore and rehabilitate, then offset.
- 101-3 Access and benefit-sharing
Section 2 - topic disclosures
- 101-4 Identification of biodiversity impacts
- 101-5 Locations with biodiversity impacts - site level, including supply-chain locations
- 101-6 Direct drivers of biodiversity loss
- 101-7 Changes to the state of biodiversity
- 101-8 Ecosystem services
An organisation reporting in accordance must report whichever of 101-4 to 101-8 are relevant to its biodiversity impacts, alongside the three topic management disclosures.
Confirmation that the switch is real: GRI 304: Biodiversity 2016 has been removed from GRI's English download page entirely, consistent with GRI 101 having taken effect.
Singapore angle. The supply-chain location requirement is the sharp edge. For Singapore-headquartered agri-commodity, palm oil, rubber and seafood groups, the material biodiversity impacts sit in Indonesia, Malaysia and the wider region rather than on Singapore soil, and 101-5 asks for them by location. GRI 102 additionally requires reporting of biodiversity impacts associated with climate actions, so GRI 101 and GRI 102 have to be read together - a reforestation-based carbon credit is a climate disclosure and a biodiversity disclosure at once.
Standards for high-impact sectors that tell a reporter which topics are likely to be material and what to report for each. Four are published; Financial Services and Textiles and Apparel are in the final stages.
| Standard | Sector | Effective |
|---|---|---|
| GRI 11 | Oil and Gas | 1 January 2023 |
| GRI 12 | Coal | 1 January 2024 |
| GRI 13 | Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing | 1 January 2024 |
| GRI 14 | Mining | 1 January 2026 |
All four are now published as version 1.1.
In development.
- Financial Services (banking, capital markets, insurance): exposure drafts ran 31 March to 31 May 2025; GSSB approval was scheduled for September 2026. Check the Sector Program page before relying on its status - it may have been approved since.
- Textiles and Apparel: exposure draft ran 15 July to 28 September 2025; GSSB approval scheduled for October 2026.
GRI's stated ambition is Sector Standards for 40 sectors, starting with those that have the highest impact.
Why they are not optional. GRI 1 Requirement 3-b and Requirement 5-b make Sector Standard use mandatory for in-accordance reporters in covered sectors, and Requirement 7-a-vi forces an explanation in the content index for any Sector Standard topic judged not material. You cannot quietly skip a sector topic.
Singapore angle. The Financial Services standard is the most consequential pipeline item for this market, given the concentration of banking, insurance and asset management here and the interaction with MAS environmental risk expectations and the Singapore-Asia Taxonomy. Singapore-listed agri-food groups already fall under GRI 13 and commodity and energy traders under GRI 11.
The Global Sustainability Standards Board sets a rolling three-year work programme. Open projects cover labour, economic impacts, pollution, two Sector Standards and a proposed digitalisation standard.
Consultations that have closed (all dates are historical - do not read them as open):
- Labour standards review - closed 9 March 2026
- Economic impacts consultation covering anti-corruption, anti-competitive behaviour and public policy - closed 10 April 2026
- Draft GSSB 2026-2028 work programme - closed 27 March 2026; the GSSB response and final programme were still pending as at 19 September 2026
The draft programme proposes finalising the labour, economic impact and pollution projects, completing the next phase of Sector Standards, and commencing a new digitalisation standard.
The Pollution project is the one that matters for emissions reporting. Three exposure drafts - Air Pollution, Soil Pollution and Critical Incidents - were approved for public exposure in April 2026 with the comment period closing 8 June 2026. Final GSSB approval is expected in the first half of 2027, but GRI's own pages give conflicting dates: the project page says May 2027, while the Schedule of Standards Projects says Q1 2027 for this first set. A second set covering odour and noise is scheduled for exposure in Q1 2027 with approval in Q3 2027.
The practical consequence: once GRI 102 takes effect on 1 January 2027, GRI 305 is reduced to 305-6 and 305-7, and the Pollution project is the vehicle that will eventually replace those too. A Singapore manufacturer should expect its NEA-relevant air-emission disclosures to be renumbered and expanded within roughly two reporting cycles.
Because the labour and economic-impact standards are under revision, expect the numbering and content of the 401-411 and 201-206 ranges to change during the 2026-2028 programme.
GRI maintains mappings between its Standards and other frameworks. Each carries a publication date, and the dates matter - some mappings are current and some are badly stale.
The alignment page lists linkage documents by counterpart framework. The vintages, which are the part most commentary omits:
| Mapping | Dated |
|---|---|
| GRI 102 and IFRS S2 - reporting on both standards and equivalence | June 2025 |
| Interoperability considerations for GHG emissions (GRI and ISSB) | January 2024 |
| GRI 102 and 103 to CDP - Climate Change and Energy | 21 October 2025 |
| ESRS-GRI data point mapping | April 2025 |
| GRI-ESRS Interoperability Index | November 2024 |
| Linking GRI and CDP - Water and Effluents | September 2018 |
| HKEX ESG | July 2020 |
| SEBI BRSR | April 2022 |
Mappings to TNFD, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, SASB, TCFD and B Lab are also listed.
How to use this. For a Singapore reporter the ISSB and CDP mappings are the load-bearing ones; HKEX ESG and SEBI BRSR matter for regionally dual-listed issuers. Always check the date before relying on a mapping: the January 2024 GHG interoperability document is written against the 2016 version of GRI 305 and says so, and the CDP water mapping dates from 2018.
A real gap. GRI publishes no linkage document to ISO 14064 or ISO 14001. The connection has to be made indirectly: both GRI 305 and GRI 102, and ISO 14064-1, build on the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (2004), and ISO 14064-3 verification is the usual vehicle for third-party assurance over the numbers a GRI report discloses.