[Account Manager Royal Stuart recently attended a training seminar for GRI-Certified Sustainability Reporting. Here’s his summary of the experience.]

I love learning. A couple weeks ago, my love of learning brought me to the GRI Certified Training Program, taught by the ISOS Group, LLC. ISOS conducts seminars on the Global Reporting Initiative Reporting Framework, a method for measuring sustainability practices created by the GRI¹ in 2000.

Much like the SEC’s Form 10-K, the GRI framework provides uniform reporting standards for companies, but for sustainability issues instead of financial ones. If all companies follow a similar framework, then it’s possible to compare one company’s sustainability methods to another’s.

After a long weekend of heads-down study with 10 to 20 like-minded individuals, I came out the other end of the course with a “GRI Approved” stamp on my forehead. Happily, I can now look at what was previously a mystery to me—a company’s GRI Index—and understand exactly what all the codes and numbers mean.

I am also now armed with a new appreciation for how daunting a task it is to start a sustainability program within a corporation. I already knew it was difficult, with hurdles like getting executive-level support, circumventing financial constraints (especially in this economy), and putting up with questioning glances from the uninformed. But with my new “GRI Approved” stamp, I can help make this process easier and take a lot of the reporting burden off of my clients.

So that all this knowledge won’t be limited to my balding noggin for long, Methodologie intends to have all account managers and strategic directors GRI-certified by midyear. The immediate benefit for our clients is fairly tangible: Methodologie has always been an expert in reporting, both annual reports and corporate social responsibility reports, but now we can help our clients craft their sustainability communications to be GRI-specific, should they want to go that route.

If your company’s sustainability program is just getting started, or if it’s already under way but you’re looking for direction, get in touch with us. And take the GRI training yourself when it comes to a city near you. It may sound intimidating at first, but it’s informative and actually quite fun. And totally worth it.

— Royal Stuart

1. ¹ From globalreporting.com: Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a network-based organization that has pioneered the development of the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework and is committed to its continuous improvement and application worldwide. The GRI framework sets out the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure and report their economic, environmental, and social performance. ↩