GRI vs ESRS: Key Differences & What They Mean for You

Sustainability reporting has evolved rapidly, shifting from a largely voluntary practice to a regulatory requirement with significant legal, financial, and reputational implications. While the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has long served as the leading global standard for ESG reporting, helping companies disclose their environmental, social, and governance impacts voluntarily, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), introduced under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), now impose mandatory, audit-ready reporting for all in-scope organizations. 

Understanding the differences between GRI and ESRS and how they can complement each other is essential for companies navigating today’s increasingly complex ESG landscape.

GRI has been the dominant sustainability reporting framework for nearly three decades. Used by more than 10,000 organizations worldwide (GRI, 2021), it provides a principle-based, voluntary approach to reporting environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts.

GRI focuses on impact materiality, encouraging organizations to disclose how their activities affect the economy, environment, and society. Its flexibility has made it accessible to companies across industries, regions, and maturity levels.

ESRS fundamentally changes the rules. Introduced under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), ESRS is mandatory for qualifying companies, including large EU firms and non-EU companies with substantial EU operations, and enforceable under EU law.

ESRS expands sustainability reporting into a compliance exercise comparable to financial reporting - complete with standardized data points, audit requirements, and strict documentation expectations.

The rise of ESRS is driven by the EU Green Deal, increasing investor scrutiny, and the need to combat greenwashing. Regulators and capital markets now demand consistent, comparable, and verifiable ESG data, turning sustainability reporting into a core governance function.

Under CSRD, ESRS applies to:

• Large EU companies (meeting at least 2 of 3 specified criteria: >250 employees, €50M net turnover, €25M in balance sheet
• Listed SMEs (with phased-in requirements)
• Non-EU companies with significant EU operations (€150M+ EU turnover)

This represents around 50,000 companies, a fivefold increase from previous NFRD scope (Danesmade Avisory 2025).

The CSRD applicability timeline (2024 - 2029 rollout) looks as follows (Grant Thornton, 2024): 

• Phase 1 (starting 2024): All large EU companies with over 500 employees already covered by the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) with reports due in 2025.
• Phase 2 (starting 2025): All large EU companies which were not previously subject to NFRD that fulfill at least two of the following three requirements: 250+ employees, €25M+ balance sheet, €50M+ turnover with reports due in 2026
• Phase 3 (starting 2026): Listed SMEs (opt-out until 2028) with reports due in 2027/2028)
• Phase 4 (starting 2028): Non-EU parent companies that generate over €150 million in net turnover within the EU on a consolidated basis with reports due in 2029. 

Organizations outside the EU or those below CSRD thresholds may continue using GRI reporting voluntarily to meet investor expectations, prepare for future regulation and standardize sustainability disclosures globally. GRI remains widely adopted, with leading companies in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea reporting at the highest rates (KPMG, 2024). 

While often compared, GRI and ESRS are not interchangeable. The following table provides an overview of the differences between the two standards:  

1) Materiality approach

• GRI: Applies a single materiality lens, assessing topics based on the organization’s actual or potential impacts on the environment, society, and the economy.
• ESRS / CSRD: Requires a double materiality assessment, covering both impact materiality and financial materiality (risks and opportunities for the company).

2) Legal status

• GRI: Voluntary reporting framework, unless required by specific regulators, customers, or stakeholders.
• ESRS / CSRD: Mandatory under the CSRD for all in-scope companies, with legally binding reporting and assurance requirements.

3) Stakeholder engagement

• GRI: Stakeholder involvement is explicitly required and central to identifying and assessing impacts.
• ESRS / CSRD: Stakeholder engagement is expected as part of due diligence, aligned with OECD and UN standards, but less prescriptive.

4) Scope of assessment

• GRI: Companies define their own set of relevant topics, supported by GRI sector standards where applicable.
• ESRS / CSRD: All ESRS topical standards must be reviewed; companies must either report on each topic or justify why it is not material.

5) Assessment methodology

• GRI: Follows a four-step process: defining context, identifying impacts, assessing significance, and prioritizing topics, with flexibility in execution.
• ESRS / CSRD: Uses a structured four-step process guided by EFRAG implementation guidance, with more formalized requirements.

6) Disclosure of the process

• GRI: Disclosure of the materiality process is recommended but flexible in format and level of detail.
• ESRS / CSRD: Disclosure is mandatory and standardized under ESRS 2 (e.g. IRO-1, IRO-2, SBM-3) and must be auditable.

7) Treatment for non-material topics

• GRI: Topics may be excluded without detailed justification, unless sector guidance or stakeholder expectations apply.
• ESRS / CSRD: All exclusions must be clearly justified, particularly for high-priority topics such as climate change or biodiversity.

8) Minimum disclosure requirements

• GRI: Only material topics are required to be disclosed; no additional baseline disclosures apply.
• ESRS / CSRD: Certain disclosures (e.g. governance, strategy, and business model) are required regardless of materiality results.

9) Use of materiality matrix

• GRI: Not required since the GRI 2021 update, but may be used as a visual tool.
• ESRS / CSRD: Not mandatory, but commonly used to illustrate double materiality and must be supported by documented evidence.

10) Audit & assurance

• GRI: External assurance is optional and voluntary.
• ESRS / CSRD: Limited assurance required from 2026, with a transition toward reasonable assurance; the materiality process is included.

11) Governance expectations

• GRI: Responsibility at management level is sufficient, involvement at board level is optional.
• ESRS / CSRD: As part of governance integration, board-level oversight is expected and must be disclosed.

12) Overall reporting focus

• GRI: Emphasizes transparency and accountability toward a broad range of stakeholders.
• ESRS / CSRD: Designed to deliver decision-useful, comparable information for investors and stakeholders within a regulatory framework.

GRI is a voluntary, principle-based framework that allows organizations flexibility in how they disclose sustainability impacts. ESRS, by contrast, is mandatory under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and is legally enforceable across the European Union.

This distinction has major implications for audit, governance, and compliance risk. ESRS reporting errors can result in regulatory penalties, while GRI non-compliance typically carries reputational risk rather than legal consequences. As a result, companies subject to CSRD must approach ESRS reporting with the same level of rigor and control as financial reporting.

GRI and ESRS take different approaches to materiality:

• GRI focuses on impact materiality, evaluating how a company’s activities affect people, the environment, and society.
• ESRS applies double materiality, considering both the company’s impacts on the world and how sustainability issues influence its financial performance.
  

A practical example is water scarcity in agriculture. 

Under GRI, the key question is: How does the company impact water resources through its operations or supply chain?

Under ESRS, companies must also ask: How does water scarcity affect the company’s financial resilience, costs, supply security, and long-term business model and how do the company’s activities further influence water availability?

Because ESRS requires this two-way assessment, materiality analyses become significantly more complex. They demand broader data sets, stronger internal controls, cross-functional involvement (including finance and risk teams), and clear governance oversight. As a result, ESRS materiality assessments are more data-intensive, more auditable, and more closely tied to strategic and financial decision-making than traditional GRI-based approaches.

ESRS requires far more detailed data than GRI, particularly for environmental topics. While GRI allows flexibility in selecting topics and the level of detail reported, ESRS follows a strict principle: only omit a topic if it is not material and provide justification (ESRS Q&A, 2023).

For example, in biodiversity reporting:

• GRI 304 provides high-level disclosures on habitats and company impacts.
• ESRS E4 demands detailed metrics, transition plans, dependencies, targets, and associated financial risks.

This difference illustrates clearly why GRI reporting alone does not ensure ESRS compliance.

Under ESRS, companies must provide detailed disclosures on their sustainability strategy, including short-, medium-, and long-term time horizons, transition plans aligned with EU climate objectives, and quantified targets with progress tracking. In contrast, GRI encourages organizations to share their strategy but is far less prescriptive about the level of detail or specific metrics required. The focus is on demonstrating not just current performance, but also how the company is actively planning and preparing for future sustainability challenges and opportunities. 

In contrast, GRI encourages organizations to communicate their sustainability strategy and approach to ESG impacts, but it is far less prescriptive regarding the level of detail, time horizons, or specific metrics to report. While GRI provides flexibility and a principle-based approach, ESRS pushes companies to adopt a more structured, measurable, and decision-useful perspective that ties sustainability directly to governance and business planning.

Assurance requirements under ESRS are more rigorous than under GRI. While GRI allows external assurance to be optional, ESRS mandates limited assurance for sustainability disclosures, with reasonable assurance expected from 2028. This ensures that reported ESG data is reliable, verifiable, and aligned with regulatory expectations. To meet these requirements, companies must implement robust internal control systems (ICS), maintain comprehensive documentation, and ensure data traceability across all relevant processes. 

These assurance obligations increase the need for strong governance, cross-functional collaboration, and technology-enabled reporting solutions to manage, validate, and audit ESG data effectively. As a result, ESRS reporting shifts sustainability from a voluntary communication exercise to a structured, compliance-driven practice akin to financial reporting.

In 2023, GRI and EFRAG announced a formal collaboration aimed at making sustainability reporting more efficient and reducing unnecessary duplication for companies navigating multiple frameworks. This partnership reflects the growing need for consistency and comparability in ESG disclosures, particularly as regulatory requirements like ESRS gain prominence. 

Building on this collaboration, in 2024 they launched the GRI-ESRS Interoperability Index, a practical tool that provides detailed mapping of data points between GRI and ESRS. The index helps companies identify overlaps, gaps, and synergies in their reporting, making it easier to align disclosures with both frameworks while saving time, reducing errors, and improving overall transparency and compliance readiness.

The interoperability tools help companies map GRI disclosures to ESRS requirements, identify overlaps, synergies, and gaps, and align terminology and taxonomies. While they do not provide full one-to-one granularity at every datapoint, the tools highlight major differences in scope, definition, or level of detail, and indicate which GRI disclosures are not fully covered by ESRS. This guidance is particularly valuable for organizations transitioning from GRI reporting to ESRS compliance, helping them understand where adjustments are needed while still being able to reference GRI Standards.

Despite efforts to improve alignment, interoperability between GRI and ESRS remains limited. Currently, only around 40% of ESRS data points are adequately addressed by GRI disclosures. Areas with weak alignment include biodiversity, pollution, and resource use/circular economy, among others. As a result, companies cannot rely solely on GRI compliance to meet CSRD requirements and must implement additional processes, data collection, and reporting adjustments to fully satisfy ESRS standards.

While ESRS introduces greater complexity, companies already reporting under GRI start with a solid foundation, including established data collection processes, experience with impact materiality, and stakeholder engagement mechanisms. However, GRI reporting alone does not ensure ESRS compliance, double materiality, mandatory assurance, and prescriptive disclosure requirements demand new capabilities. 

Technology plays a key role here: platforms like carbmee EIS™ are designed to simplify CSRD compliance by embedding double materiality directly into the system. Carbmee guides organizations through ESRS-aligned materiality assessments, maps ESG data to ESRS requirements, and automates data collection across departments and subsidiaries. Built-in validation, audit-ready documentation, and AI-driven insights ensure data accuracy, support external assurance, and help identify ESG risks and opportunities integrating carbon, financial, and regulatory reporting into a single, scalable system.

What is the Difference between GRI and ESRS?

GRI is a voluntary global sustainability reporting standard focused on impact materiality. ESRS is a mandatory EU framework under CSRD requiring double materiality, standardized disclosures, and assurance.

Can I use GRI reporting to comply with ESRS?

Partially. GRI can support ESRS preparation, but it does not fully satisfy ESRS requirements.

What is the double materiality in ESRS?

It assesses both sustainability impacts on society/environment and financial risks/opportunities for the company.

Do ESRS reporting requirements apply outside the EU?

Yes, for non-EU parent companies with significant EU operations (€150M+ net turnover).

Is external assurance required for ESRS reports?

Yes. Limited assurance is mandatory now, with reasonable assurance expected from 2028.

What are the 3 GRI standards?

1. Universal Standards:  incorporate reporting on human rights and environmental due diligence, in line with intergovernmental expectations, and apply to all organizations.
2. Sector Standards: enable more consistent reporting on sector-specific impacts.
3. Topic Standards: list disclosures relevant to a particular topic. 
   

Is GRI still relevant?

Yes. GRI remains a globally recognized foundation and a valuable stepping stone toward ESRS compliance.