effective abolition of child labor; and
Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation.
Environment
Principle 7: support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote environmental responsibility; and
Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
Anti‐Corruption
Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
In August of 2002, The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD also call RIO+10) was held in Johannesburg, South Africa (7). This was the next major global event for sustainability. This included the second version of the public reporting recommendations from the GRI. From this conference, the concept of the three pillars of sustainability formally emerged. Quoting from just paragraph 5 of the UN Document:
Accordingly, we assume a collective responsibility to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable development ‐ economic development, social development and environmental protection ‐ at the local, national, regional and global levels (8).
FIGURE 1 Three‐legged stool of sustainability.
This promoted the concept of the three‐legged stool of sustainability (Figure 1). While unclear as to the actual origins of this metaphor, it has been used since the very early 1940s to describe three interrelated elements (used to describe social security in the USA). The concept is that each leg is of equal value to the stability of the stool. In our case, this is environmental (protection), social (development), and economic (development). In CSR, this is often stated as People, Planet, and Profits, or the “Triple Bottom Line” and is shown in Figure 2 as three interconnected circles.
There have been additional UN‐sponsored conferences, which grew in importance and attendance as the recognition of sustainability grew. This including the RIO+20 conference held again in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June of 2012. This meeting had more than 40 000 attendees from national and local governments, international organizations, businesses, and civil society, as well as more than 50 heads of state and close to 500 ministers according to the UN. From this meeting, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the General Assembly (of the UN) and others have developed the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by Heads of State and Governments in September 2015 and their pledge to issue reports on progress (9). The last UN report issued was the 2016 Global Sustainability Report with the next report due in 2019.
FIGURE 2 CSR triple bottom line.
3 VOLUNTARY PUBLIC REPORTING STANDARDS THAT INCLUDE SAFETY AND HEALTH
In 2000, the first of a series of guidelines were developed by GRI for the public reporting of progress in sustainability. While a number of both public and private companies published some form of environmental or CSR reports or had elements of both in their annual reports, these were a minority. This was especially true for the United States. However, there were a few exceptions. As an example, Proctor and Gamble published their first sustainability report in 1999.
The GRI is considered the “gold standard” for sustainability reporting with almost all sustainability and CSR reporters using it as the template for their reports. This is shown by the GRI having gone from a disclosures database of 12 reports in 1999 to more than 6000 in 2016 (10). The Governance & Accountability Institute reported that 82% of the US‐based S&P 500 companies issued sustainability reports in 2016 further showing the tremendous growth in this as a business practice (11). The GRI also reported in their 20 years of progress report that 74% of the largest 250 companies in the world also use the GRI standards for reporting.
The GRI has recently changed their organizational structure (2014) with the formation of the Global Sustainability Standards Board and their recommendations are now called GRI Standards. The reason that the GRI takes a prominent role in our discussion is that it is the most widely used template for sustainability reporting. The GRI does not limit the amount of information reported but does form a baseline. These recommendations will be expanded and more oriented to sectors like those for the US‐based Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) which is discussed later. This is important because what is required to be publically reported is collected by the reporters at their organizations. Thus, the importance of a reporting requirement in the GRI means that the metric reported will surely be monitored by the reporting company and that there will be pressure to improve that statistic. The collection of health and safety metrics and information is found in the Social element of the current GRI requirements (Environmental and Governance are separate). These are GRI version 4 Labor (LA) 5 through 8 and are shown as follows:
LA 5: Percentage of total workforce represented in formal joint management–worker health and safety committees that help monitor and advise [sic] on occupational health and safety programs
1 Report the level at which each formal joint management‐worker health and safety committee typically operates within the organization.
2 Report the percentage of the total workforce represented in formal joint management‐worker health and safety committees.
LA 6: Type of injury and rates of injury, occupational diseases, lost days, and absenteeism, and total number of work‐related fatalities, by region and by gender
1 Report types of injury, injury rate (IR), occupational diseases rate (ODR), lost day rate (LDR), absentee rate (AR), and work‐related fatalities, for the total workforce (that is, total employees plus supervised workers), by:– Region– Gender
2 Report types of injury, injury rate (IR), occupational diseases rate (ODR), lost day rate (LDR), absentee rate (AR), and work‐related fatalities for independent contractors working on‐site to whom the organization is liable for the general safety of the working environment, by:– Region– Gender
3 Report the system of rules applied in recording and reporting accident statistics
LA 7: Workers with high incidence or high risk of diseases related to their occupation
1 Report whether there are workers who are involved in occupational activities who have a high incidence or high risk of specific diseases.
LA 8: Health and safety topics covered in formal agreements with trade unions
1 Report whether formal agreements (either local or global) with trade unions cover health and safety.
2 If yes, report the extent, as a percentage, to which various health and safety topics are covered by these agreements.
There are several other reporting recommendations in the GRI that are related to safety and health, such as consumer safety (PR 1) and product labeling (PR 3), but these are beyond our scope in this discussion. The full reporting requirements are available from the GRI website (https://www.globalreporting.org/standards). The GRI has global applicability but there are some additional voluntary nonfinancial disclosure reporting requirements for public companies in the United States.