Statement on sustainable development strategy

Disclosure focus

Disclosure 2-22 requires an organization to report a statement from its highest governance body or most senior executive about the relevance of sustainable development to the organization and its strategy for contributing to sustainable development.

The statement must be clearly attributable to one of these two sources. A Board Chair, committee Chair, functional executive, or other senior leader should not be treated automatically as a qualifying source. A Chair can present the statement where the Chair is speaking on behalf of the highest governance body or is otherwise the organization’s most senior executive.

The statement should explain not only how sustainability affects the organization’s strategy, risks, resilience or value creation, but also how the organization intends to contribute to sustainable development through the management of its impacts on the economy, environment, and people.

GRI recommends that the statement describe the organization’s short-, medium- and long-term vision and strategy for managing impacts, including human rights impacts, across its activities and business relationships.

It should explain how the organization’s purpose, business strategy and business model aim to prevent negative impacts and achieve positive impacts on the economy, environment, and people.

The statement should describe short- and medium-term strategic priorities for contributing to sustainable development and explain how these priorities align with relevant authoritative intergovernmental instruments.

It should address the broader macroeconomic, social, political and other trends affecting the organization and its strategy.

The statement should provide a balanced account of key events, achievements and failures during the reporting period and a view of performance against the goals and targets related to the organization’s material topics.

It should also describe the organization’s main challenges, goals and targets for the next year and for the coming three to five years.

These seven areas are Guidance rather than separate mandatory requirements. Nevertheless, they provide the official basis for preparing a substantive, balanced and decision-useful statement rather than a short generic leadership message.

The organization can use a statement from the highest governance body, a statement from the most senior executive, or clearly attributed complementary statements from both. Where multiple statements are used, the GRI content index should identify all relevant locations.

Internal approval, version control and source-document records are useful evidence and quality-control measures, but they are not additional requirements of GRI 2-22.

Actual reporting-period performance should be distinguished from future plans, commitments and aspirations. Forward-looking statements should be supported by approved strategy and target documents.

Reasons for omission are permitted for Disclosure 2-22 where the mandatory statement cannot be reported. Missing individual Guidance elements should be identified as quality gaps but should not automatically be treated as omitted mandatory requirements.

This LRA educational guidance supports disclosure preparation. For the exact requirements, always refer to the official GRI source.