Just a few years ago, sustainability reporting was largely voluntary, an exercise in transparency driven by goodwill rather than regulation. Today, that landscape looks very different. Across the world, governments and financial regulators are integrating sustainability disclosures into mainstream accounting systems. What was once an optional narrative about impact is fast becoming a core element of corporate governance.
At the heart of this transformation stands the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), whose standards have long been the backbone of impact-based reporting. In July 2025, GRI launched an enhanced Professional Certification Learning Path, designed to prepare professionals for the increasingly regulated, interconnected world of sustainability disclosure.
The update is more than a simple course refresh. It marks a shift toward practical, sector-specific, and future-ready learning — reflecting how quickly the field itself is evolving.
The new learning path introduces two significant additions.
The first, Navigating the GRI Sector Standards, formalizes a topic that has been part of GRI’s framework for some time but is now a dedicated module. It helps professionals apply industry-specific standards to produce reports that are not only accurate but also comparable across peers. The course aims to close a long-standing gap in the field — the inconsistency of reporting within industries — by giving practitioners the tools to identify and disclose what truly matters in their sector.
The second, Transparency for Tomorrow: Decoding the Sustainability Reporting Landscape, responds to a challenge familiar to many professionals: the growing web of reporting frameworks. This course helps learners understand how the GRI Standards align with other global systems such as the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards (S1 and S2), the EU’s ESRS, and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). The goal is not to replace one with another, but to show how they complement each other, bridging the gap between impact materiality and financial materiality.
As part of this update, GRI has also phased out its previous module, Integrating the SDGs into Sustainability Reporting, weaving those concepts directly into the broader learning journey. This change reflects a more holistic approach — one that integrates sustainable development principles throughout the reporting process rather than treating them as a separate topic.
The timing of these changes is no coincidence. In 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), under the IFRS Foundation, introduced the first IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. This was a milestone moment — the point at which sustainability reporting came under the same institutional roof as financial reporting. The IFRS Foundation already sets accounting standards in over 140 jurisdictions, and now it provides the same foundation for sustainability-related financial disclosures.
Collaboration between GRI and the IFRS Foundation is reshaping how organizations report their performance. Together, the two bodies are working toward full interoperability, ensuring that companies can meet both investor and stakeholder needs without duplicating effort. In practice, this means that a company reporting under GRI can more easily align its disclosures with IFRS requirements — a crucial advantage as governments move toward mandatory sustainability reporting.
Read also: How GRI is pioneering standardization in sustainability reporting
What it means for professionals and for Africa
This growing convergence has broad implications for professionals. Sustainability reporting is no longer the sole responsibility of communications or CSR departments. It now involves finance teams, auditors, and risk managers who must integrate non-financial information into business strategy and governance.
For professionals across Africa, this shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity. As countries such as Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, and Nigeria deepen their participation in global markets, their ability to meet international reporting expectations will increasingly determine access to capital and competitiveness. Strengthening professional capacity through programs like the GRI Learning Path is therefore not just a training exercise — it’s an investment in the region’s sustainable growth and economic resilience.
In a world where sustainability reporting is becoming as essential as financial reporting, the GRI and IFRS collaboration represents more than a technical alignment — it’s a redefinition of accountability itself. And for professionals ready to adapt, the new GRI Learning Path offers the tools to lead that change.