GRI Selects Food and Beverage for New Sector Standard Pilot

GRI is developing a new Sector Standard for food and beverage companies, selecting the sector as the first pilot for a streamlined approach designed to speed up how the organization builds industry-specific reporting guidance. The organization's June 2026 State of Sustainability Reporting research, covering almost 15,000 listed companies worldwide, found that 43 percent of food and beverage companies report using GRI standards, representing 70 percent of the sector's global market capitalization. GRI is now seeking up to 20 sector experts worldwide to join a multi-stakeholder Peer Review Group shaping the new standard, with applications open until October 23, 2026.

 

The streamlined format is designed to cut development time while preserving GRI's established multi-stakeholder due process, identifying the topics most likely to be material for food and beverage companies, summarizing their most significant impacts, and directing organizations to relevant existing GRI Topic Standards rather than building an entirely new framework from scratch. GRI selected food and beverage as the pilot sector given the scale of its sustainability footprint, with the project set to examine impacts across company operations and value chains, including connections to agriculture, aquaculture and fishing.

 

Read more: Bursa Malaysia First Malaysian PLC to Hit Top FTSE4Good ESG Score

 

The new standard will apply to all organizations involved in food and drink processing and manufacturing, including tobacco products, and will join existing GRI Sector Standards that currently cover oil and gas, coal, mining, agriculture, aquaculture and fishing. Sector Standards sit within GRI's modular reporting system, where organizations start from the Universal Standards, use applicable Sector Standards to determine material topics, and then report against those topics using the relevant Topic Standards.

 

"This new GRI Sector Standard will provide focused guidance on the issues that matter most, helping companies deliver more consistent reporting, and the information needed for decision making that improves sustainability performance and business resilience," said Peter Dawkins, GRI Standards senior manager. "As the first pilot for a more streamlined approach, we need input from the sector and its stakeholders."

 

Source: GRI