Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Three features of GRI are of particular interest for the GMO case:
its inclusiveness and interactive character, its focus on social impacts, and
its global scope. The inclusiveness and participatory character are struc-
turally built into the GRI system in the following manner: the frame-
work for reporting (Reporting Guidelines) is developed through a col-
laborative effort of the widest possible range of international actors,
including the manufacturing and service sectors, institutional investors,
financial rating sector, banks and insurance industry, accountancy orga-
nizations, religious organizations, social activists, environmental and
labor organizations, governments, communities, and others. Since the
birth of the idea of GRI within the Boston-based CERES organiza-
tion in 1997, more than three thousand individuals and organizations
worked together through various working groups on figuring out what to
report, how to report, and how to account for the individual sectoral and
regional activities, needs, and interests. This collaboration has produced
three generations of generally applicable Reporting Guidelines (known
as G1, G2, and G3), and half a dozen of supplemental guidelines tai-
lored to specific sectors (Sectoral Supplements for automotive, telecom-
munications, financial services, tour operators, mining and metals, and
public agencies) as well as countless discussion papers and discussion
forums.
Furthermore, because the GRI Guidelines are a perpetual work in
progress - the work on a subsequent version of the guidelines com-
mences as soon as one is officially released - causing a self-replicating
process of social discourse over the issues that are of interest to a widely
ranging constituency. This process can be applied to the emerging GMO
industry.
The process by which GRI Guidelines have evolved - intense inter-
action, wide range of views and ideas, and a shared goal - has been con-
ducive for social learning (see section 4 for a theoretical discussion on
learning). Our own research has uncovered several dimensions of that
learning:
