Barbara Strozzilaan 336
1083 HN Amsterdam
The Netherlands
gssbsecretariat@globalreporting.org

Item 01 – Draft summary of the GSSB
meeting held on 7 July 2022
For GSSB approval
Date

7 July 2022

Meeting

15 September 2022

Description

This document presents the summary of the GSSB virtual meeting held on 7 July
2022.

This document has been prepared by the GRI Standards Division and is made available to observers
at meetings of the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB). It does not represent an official
position of the GSSB. Board positions are set out in the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards. TheGSSB is the independent standard setting body of GRI. For more information visit
www.globalreporting.org.

© GRI 2022

1

ContentsParticipants.............................................................................................................................................. 3
List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 3
Decisions and action items ..................................................................................................................... 4
Session 1: Welcome ............................................................................................................................... 4
Session 2: Standards Division update .................................................................................................... 4
Session 3: Topic Standard Project for Labor – Draft Project Proposal ................................................... 5
Session 4: Topic Standard Project for Biodiversity – Project update ..................................................... 6
Session 5: The Living Income Community of Practice presentation - ISEAL ......................................... 7Session 6: Any other business and close of the meeting ....................................................................... 8Page 2 of 82Participants

3Present:

456NameConstituency

Judy Kuszewski

Chair

Robyn Leeson

Vice-Chair

Loredana Carta

LaborPeter Colley

Labor

Giulia Genuardi

Business enterprise

Evan Harvey

Investment institution

Vincent Kong

Business enterprise

Anna Nefedova

Mediating institution

Corli le RouxMediating institution

Gangaa Charan SharmaBusiness enterprise

Kim Schumacher

Civil society organization

Kenton Swift

Civil society organization

Michel Washer

Business enterprise

Apologies:
NameConstituency

Joseph Martin

Business enterpriseJennifer Princing

Business enterprise

In attendance from GRI:
NamePosition

Bastian Buck

Chief of Standards

Harold Pauwels

Director Standards

Élodie Chêne

Manager Standards

Gillian Balaban

Sr. Coordinator Governance Relations

List of abbreviations
GRI
GSSB
SD
WG
TC
PCP

Global Reporting Initiative
Global Sustainability Standards Board
Standards Division
Working group
Technical committee
Public comment period

Page 3 of 8

7Decisions and action items

8Decisions

9The GSSB resolved to approve the following:

10GSSB Decision 2022.13 Item 01 – Draft summary of GSSB meeting held on 19 May 2022

11GSSB Decision 2022.14 Item 02 – Draft summary of GSSB meeting held on 16 June 2022

12GSSB Decision 2022.15 Item 03 – GRI Topic Standards – Labor Topics – Draft project proposal

13

Session 1: Welcome

14

The Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB) Chair Judy Kuszewski (henceforth the Chair)

15

welcomed the GSSB. The Chair presented an overview of the meeting agenda. The GSSB was

16

presented with the following items for approval:

17Item 01 – Draft summary of GSSB meeting held on 19 May 2022

18

Item 02 – Draft summary of GSSB meeting held on 16 June 2022

19

Item 03 – GRI Topic Standards – Labor Topics – Draft project proposal

20Session 2: Standards Division update

21

Chief of Standards, Bastian Buck, presented the following points for consideration:

22

•

23
24

and successfully launched on 30 June.
•25
26

The Sector Standard for Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing (GRI 13) was released on 28 June

The launch of GRI 13 was accompanied by social media promotions, a digital campaign, a widelydistributed newsletter, and at least 25 news articles.

•Over 1,000 people attended the launch event. GSSB Chair Judy Kuszewski opened the event

27

that featured speakers from OECD, FAO, and WBA. The recording will be distributed to all28

registrants and made available on the project webpage.

29
30

•

GRI Standards downloads were up by 51% from Q2 2021 (over 250,000 total) and contained
19,135 new registered users. The top three regions were Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

31

Page 4 of 832

Session 3: Topic Standard Project for

33

Labor – Draft Project Proposal34Director of Standards, Harold Pauwels, presented the following points regarding the Topic Standards

35

revision program for Labor:

36

•37
38

The project comprises labor-related Topic Standards identified during the second half of GRI’s
human-related Standards review.

•The revision project includes but is not limited to GRI 202: Market Presence 2016; GRI 401:

39

Employment 2016; GRI 402: Labor/Management Relations 2016; GRI 404: Training and40

Education 2016; GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity 2016; GRI 407: Freedom of41

Association and Collective Bargaining 2016; GRI 408: Child Labor 2016; GRI 409: Forced or42

Compulsory Labor 2016.

43

•44
45

standards in line with authoritative intergovernmental instruments.
•46

experts from key international stakeholder groups.

48

2. Advisory Group to represent academic, mediation, and financial constituencies. A call for49

experts is to be launched.
•51
52

The project will follow a programmatic approach, which allows the grouping of various topics andfor different aspects of the review to run in parallel over two project phases.

•53
54

The project encompasses two layers of engagement and consultation:
1. Technical Committee to develop draft recommendations to the GSSB, comprised of six

4750

Based on discussions with key groups in the labor sphere, the goal of the project is to bring theThe proposed timeline for the project is expected to be 25 months. The next step will be to send
the proposal to the GSSB, pending formal approval.

•Following the presentation of the project proposal, several GSSB members asked questions. One

55

member asked about the possibility of new workstreams or revisions being added to the project56

after the approval. The SD responded that the management approach would focus on the topics

57

outlined in the proposal.

58•The GSSB approved the draft proposal (see GSSB Decision 2022.15).

59
60

Page 5 of 8

61

Session 4: Topic Standard Project for

62

Biodiversity – Project update

63

Project Manager Élodie Chêne provided an update on the progress of the Biodiversity project as64

follows:

65•A 4th TC meeting was held on 14 June 2022, and the next TC meeting is to take place in early

66

September 2022, with a final TC meeting (fatal flaw check) in late October 2022. GSSB approval

67of the exposure draft is expected on 17 November 2022. Public exposure will start in December.

68•In terms of alignments and collaborations, the following biodiversity frameworks and tools inform69

the project: UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which will be under discussion at the70

upcoming COP15 in December 2022 in Montreal; Taskforce on Nature-related Financial

71

Disclosures (TNFD); Science-Based Target Network (SBTN); Aligning accounting approaches for72

nature (Align); Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

73(IPBES); and Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials (PBAF).

74•

The following benchmarking and reporting frameworks are also being used: EFRAG ESRS E4

75

Biodiversity and Ecosystems; CDP questionnaire; WBA Nature Benchmark; and ISO Biodiversity

76

Standard.

77

•

78

An overview of the main disclosures agreed upon so far includes:

79

•80
81

It is worth noting that some TC members are involved in these processes and organizations.

Location of impacts – geographic location of the operations responsible for the impacts; andproximity to areas of importance to biodiversity.

•82

Direct drivers of biodiversity loss – climate change; invasive alien species; land and sea usechange; overexploitation of resources; and pollution.

83•

State of biodiversity – impacts on species and ecosystems.

84•

Ecosystem services – description of ecosystem services that are affected.

85•

Management of biodiversity-related impacts – no net loss and net gains of biodiversity; application

86of the mitigation hierarchy; and access and benefit sharing.

87

The following issues are still under discussion:

88•

As the development of biodiversity-related instruments is in its infancy, there is a lack of approved

89

methodology to measure an organization’s contribution to the direct drivers of biodiversity loss

90

and a lack of methodology to identify the baseline.

91
92

•

Reporting across the value chain – the challenge here is data availability, especially from thedownstream value chain.

Page 6 of 8

93•

How to best adapt the requirements to cover terrestrial and marine environments.

94•

Terminology for impacts and alignment with the Universal Standards 2021.

95

Session 5: The Living Income

96

Community of Practice presentation

97– ISEAL98

The Chair welcomed guest speaker Kristin Komives, Director of Programmes at ISEAL, to present the99

following points on living wage and living income as inputs to the GSSB work program 2023-2025:

100

•

101
102

usually in an agricultural context.
•103
104

Living wage applies to an individual worker in any sector; living income applies to a household,

The living income benchmark estimates the cost of a basic and decent standard of living for ahousehold. The living wage is the cost of a decent standard of living for a family.

•Adoption of the living income and living wage concepts is growing rapidly: for example, many

105

companies and investors are using the concepts to frame and inform strategies and make106

commitments.

107

•108
109

was high on the agenda at the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
•

110
111

••

Measurement and reporting on living wage and living income should be truthful and meaningful,designed to incentivize investment and drive impact.

•116
117

For GRI’s consideration, it is important to note that while living wage and living income are highly
material in most sectors, the two concepts pose different challenges in measurement.

114
115

There are many innovative applications and tools – such as living income reference prices, tools
for measuring wage gaps, and living wage and living income benchmarks.

112
113

There is growing global engagement in the Living Income Community of Practice. Living income

Companies are looking for guidance on reporting and disclosure – more alignment between
existing initiatives is needed.

•Following the presentation, several questions were raised by the GSSB, including how to reflect

118

social security in the calculation, how to define GRI’s role in articulating living wage, and whether

119

it is a sector or topic issue.

120•In response, it was concluded that GRI could work to bolster the living wage’s cross-sectoral

121

relevance by emphasizing management approaches to the issue. Standards benchmarks, in any

122case, are important for determining what a decent standard of living should be.

123

Page 7 of 8

124

Session 6: Any other business and125

close of the meeting
No other business was raised, and the Chair closed the public meeting at 15.42 Central European
Time (CET).

Page 8 of 8