OREANDA-NEWS. September 17, 2010. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) published on its official site a Russian version of the Financial Services Sector Supplement to the GRI Guidelines. Earlier the Sector Supplement was available only in English.

Vnesheconombank translated the Sector Supplement under the Agreement on Granting Vnesheconombank an Official Translator’s Status. The Agreement was signed in 2009. In order to confirm the quality and authenticity of the translation as well as its correspondence to the original version independent reviewers were engaged from the World Wild Nature Fund (WWF-Russia) and Ernst&Young Company.

The Financial Services Sector Supplement was developed by the Global Reporting Initiative in cooperation with the United Nations Environmental Programme Financial Initiative (UNEP FI) with the participation of working groups formed from representatives of more than 50 foreign financial institutions.

With the publication of the Russian version of the Supplement, Russian financial institutions will be able to prepare non-financial reports in compliance with GRI requirements taking into account the sector specifics upon disclosing indicators of the GRI Guidelines.

The Global Reporting Initiative is an international organization established by the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) in partnership with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) to ensure the highest quality and credibility of sustainability reporting.

The GRI Guidelines are main sustainability reporting standards. They include a list of economic, environmental and social performance indicators showing organizations’ contribution to sustainable development. The following financial institutions use the GRI Guidelines to prepare sustainability reports: Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW), the Asian Development Bank, (ADB), the Inter-American Development (IDB),the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Bank of America Corp, the European Investment (EIB), the China State Development Bank (all in all more than 200 foreign financial institutions).