Sustainable development reporting requires that organizations release public reports on their economic, environmental and social performances. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is the international benchmark for sustainable development reports. It sets out guidelines for organizations seeking to report on their sustainable development activities. The aim of the approach is threefold: data comparability, transparency and stakeholder responsibility. The GRI has also released sector-specific supplements. The G4 version of the guidelines is currently in effect (since 2013) and includes 79 indicators to ensure significant transparency with regards to supply chain risks.
In 2012, fewer than 30% of organizations that claimed to have integrated sustainable development criteria into their procurement processes had also set out indicators to report on their actions.
Within the ECPAR
In late 2012, Gaz Métro implemented the Sustainable Development Roadmap 2013–2017, which mobilizes the corporation, its subsidiaries and joint ventures around 19 commitments to be met within five years. The document describes the ways in which Gaz Métro will contribute to creating a greener, fairer and more prosperous society. As part of these commitments, Gaz Métro released a 2013 sustainable development report based on GRI guidelines and strives to influence its employees, customers, suppliers and associates with respect to sustainable development, specifically through its responsible procurement policy. Gaz Métro’s 2013 GRI report provides an outline of the corporation’s supply chain and natural gas procurement process, from production to consumption. It presents the distribution of suppliers for each goods and services category as well as a preliminary analysis of potential environmental, social, economic and governance-related risks for each supplier type. The report is among the first in Québec to meet the requirements of the fourth edition of the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines (GRI G4).
As early as 2001, Hydro-Québec adopted the GRI approach to report on its sustainable development performance. According to the GRI, the corporation’s 2013 report complies with the requirements of the A+ level of the G3.1 criteria. In 2011, Hydro-Québec distinguished itself by carrying out a
relevance analysis of the information contained in its sustainable development reports in an effort to target strategic sustainable development issues and assess their relative significance (high, medium, low). Responsible procurement is among the priority issues determined by stakeholders as part of the approach. In fact, it remains one of the key activities in the
corporation’s value chain (all of Hydro-Québec added-value activities, from product design to service delivery to customers).
