Three new GRI topical standards for climate and nature: what the updates mean for reporters

Today, GRI standards are widely used as a reporting framework among companies that engage in sustainability reporting. This helps identify material topics to report on,and allows for structured and transparent disclosure. It can also serve as a robust foundation for a later transition to reporting in accordance with other international standards that are gaining more traction, especially ESRS or ISSB/IFRS.  

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) continues to evolve its standards to reflect international best practices, regulatory convergence and rising expectations about accountability. As part of this ongoing revision cycle, three topical GRI Standards have been updated:

The updates by GRI are more than technical revisions – the  topical standards now call for more strategic and context-based disclosures, and are also increasingly aligning with other sustainability frameworks.

In this article, we summarize the key changes across the three standards, with a deep dive into climate change as a material topic for many companies.

GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 – a new centrepiece for climate disclosures

GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 consolidates and replaces climate-related disclosures that were previously spread across multiple standards, including:

• GRI 305: Emissions 2016 (Disclosures 305‑1 to 305‑5)
• GRI 201: Economic Performance 2016 (Disclosure 201‑2)

These disclosures will be withdrawn once GRI 102 comes into effect, creating a single, coherent climate change disclosure standard.

The most notable shift in GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 is a move away from a primarily quantitative, metrics-driven approach toward contextual and strategic disclosures. Climate change mitigation – focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and supporting the transition to a low‑carbon economy – is addressed more explicitly through enhanced requirements. For the first time, transition planning becomes a central element of climate reporting under GRI. Companies are expected to disclose whether a transition plan exists and how it is integrated into strategy, governance and decision making, as well as how targets, policies and actions support the transition, thereby also considering a “just transition”.

In addition to mitigation, climate change adaptation receives stronger attention. Disclosures under GRI 102 require companies to publish their climate change adaptation plan, including the use of climate-related scenarios, temperature projections, and how physical climate risks are assessed and addressed. A structured climate risk and scenario analysis becomes a practical foundation for robust disclosures.

GRI 102 also introduces explicit disclosures on the use of carbon credits and GHG removals – within both own operations and across the value chain. This reflects growing scrutiny regarding offsetting claims and the quality of climate strategies.

Companies are still required to report Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 GHG emissions and emission intensity. The methodologies remain largely familiar, but requirements are slightly restructured. In practice, this means limited methodological change, but updates to ESG data collection and reporting logic will be required.

Alignment with ESRS, TCFD and SBTi

An important feature of GRI 102: Climate Change 2025 is its increased interoperability with other standards and frameworks: the revision reflects the Global Sustainability Standards Board’s (GSSB) aim to better align GRI with international climate agreements, scientific developments and leading frameworks, while maintaining GRI’s impact focused perspective. Examples include:

• ESRS E1 (Climate change)
  • Policies and actions under disclosures of GRI 102‑1 are similar to ESRS E1‑2 (Policies) and E1‑3 (Actions and resources).
  • The introduction of reporting on a transition plan mirrors ESRS expectations.
• Recommendations of Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)
  • Scenario analysis, transition planning and governance disclosures are broadly aligned with the expectations of TCFD, which is now integrated within the ISSB, even though GRI maintains an impact-oriented rather than risk-centric focus.
• Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)
  • While GRI does not require SBTi validation, disclosures on target setting and transition planning under GRI 102-1 and 102-4 can serve as a foundation for companies considering SBTi-aligned targets or commitments.

Linking energy use to transition pathways

GRI 103: Energy 2025 complements the climate change topical standard by sharpening expectations around reporting on energy consumption, efficiency and transition-related actions.

Key themes include stronger attention to supplier engagement and value chain energy impacts, as well as improved consistency with transition planning under GRI 102, particularly for Scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Biodiversity-standard raises expectations on nature-impacts disclosures

GRI 101: Biodiversity 2024 reflects the rapidly growing importance of nature and biodiversity loss topics in sustainability reporting.

While the detailed requirements differ from GRI 102: Climate Change, the direction is similar: stronger focus on context, location and value chain impacts, greater emphasis on systematic assessment and prioritization, and increasing convergence with emerging biodiversity approaches (e.g. LEAP approach – locate, evaluate, assess and prepare – in line with Task Force on Nature-related Disclosures (TNFD) and upcoming IFRS nature standards).

For many companies, reporting on biodiversity will require new data sources and data collection, cross-functional collaboration and more granular analysis. This is reflected by the more standardized structure and content of nature-related data expected by GRI 101 that follows previous developments of climate change and energy data disclosures.

Our step-by-step recommendations

The new standards apply from 2026/2027 reporting onwards, so we recommend companies start preparing now:

1. Conduct or revise your materiality analysis against the updated standards, especially climate change.
2. Review existing disclosures for gaps regarding the transition plan, adaptation and contextual information.
3. Align internal processes (strategy, risk, sustainability, finance) to prepare for more detailed quantitative data collection and reporting.
4. Leverage interoperability: use GRI disclosures to support ESRS, TCFD/ISSB or SBTi-related reporting where possible.

For climate change in particular, the focus on transition plans, adaptation and strategic alignment raises the bar for transparent sustainability reporting. Sustainserv supports companies in navigating through the updated standards and facilitates their application in reporting.

If you would like to participate in our two-day GRI training course (Zurich), further information is available at https://sustainserv.com/en/gri-training/.

For support with developing your first GRI report or enhancing an existing report, please contact us here.

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