Since its first draft guidelines were published in March 1999,[1][2] GRI's voluntary sustainability reporting framework has been adopted by multinational organizations, governments, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), NGOs, and industry groups.

The GRI Universal Standards apply to all organizations and cover core sustainability issues related to a company’s impact on the economy, society, and the environment.

[10][9] The Global Reporting Initiative was developed in 1997 by the United States–based non-profits Ceres (formerly the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies) and consulting agency Tellus Institute.

Other influential thinkers who were board members of Ceres included Joan Bavaria of the Social Investment Forum (SIF), Alica Gravitz of Co-op America and Paul Freundlich of the US-based Fair Trade Foundation.

Work immediately began on a second version which was released at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in August 2002—where the organization and the guidelines were also referred to in the Plan of Implementation signed by all attending member states.

By April 2002, GRI had decided to settle in Amsterdam, Netherlands[1] where it subsequently incorporated as a non-profit organization and a Collaborating Centre of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Although the GRI is independent, it remains a collaborating center of UNEP and works in cooperation with the United Nations Global Compact.

[15] GRI has managed to mobilize extensive contributions of time, knowledge and funding from a wide variety of individuals and organizations.

[16][12][17] UN Secretary General Kofi Annan described it as having a "unique contribution to make in fostering transparency and accountability of corporate activities beyond financial matters".

The network provided a platform for analysis and feedback on the Guidelines, enabling diverse stakeholders to actively engage in their creation and evolution.

"[12] The process of aligning and standardizing practices has continued through multiple versions, with some debate over definitions of materiality to be used in sustainability reporting and their implicatioins.

[23] The GRI standards aim to enable third parties to assess environmental impact from the activities of the company and its supply chain.

[10][9] The GRI Universal Standards apply to all organizations and cover core sustainability issues related to a company’s impact on the economy, society, and the environment.

Examples of ESG reporting include quantified measures of CO2 emissions, working and payment conditions, and financial transparency.

[33][34] In 2020 GRI decided to discontinue its publicly accessible sustainability disclosure database as of April 2021, due to the overhead of maintaining the collection.

[6] In order to circumvent "greenwashing" or falsified reporting, a financial institution can conduct an independent audit of the investee or enter into a dialogue with the top management of a company in question.

[40] The reporting techniques were encouraged to rely on recognized frameworks such as GRI's Sustainability Reporting Guidelines, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, OECD Guidelines, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26000 and the International Labour Organization (ILO) Tripartite Declarations.