By the People- For the People!

SAN DIEGO - June 6, 2014 - PRLog -- ISOS Group, in association with academics, consultants and electronic industry sustainability experts— is pleased to announce the release of a new resource document that highlights synergies between the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition^™ (EICC) Code of Conduct with the Global Reporting Initiative^™ (GRI) Reporting Guidelines.  This is the first is a series of documents aimed at linking leading initiatives, protocols and standards with the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) G4 Guidelines.

As a leading provider of GRI Certified Sustainability Reporting Trainings and expert practice, ISOS is in the unique position to deliver knowledge and tools to help pave the way for the sustainability field.  Though the development of the document entitled, “Linking GRI and EICC: How the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition’s (EICC®) Code of Conduct aligns with the GRI G4 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines” was led by ISOS — it is really the product of a multi-stakeholder process taken over the last 9 months.  The goal is to provide a go-to resource highlighting the interplay between GRI and the EICC Code, which will reduce the burden of sorting through lengthy documents and lost time associated with drawing alignment to each commitment.

The EICC Code of Conduct provides social, ethical and environmental guidelines for the electronics industry, just as GRI has provided a detailed framework for reporters to convey business goals, risks and impacts to their stakeholders. From early on, the world’s leading electronics companies, which formed the EICC coalition, realized that their greatest risks lie in their supply chain abroad and that change required a collaborative approach. They have since been instrumental in mobilizing companies to improve operating efficiency and raise levels of responsibility for social, ethical and environmental impact throughout the global electronics supply chain.

As the world’s most widely used sustainability reporting framework, corporate businesses, public agencies, nongovernmental organizations, industry groups, small enterprises, municipal governments and other entities across sectors realized the need to broaden the GRI Guidelines to address supply chain impacts as well. The 4^th Generation of the GRI Guidelines released in May 2013 does just that. Disclosure items are aimed to expand the scope of responsibility outside an organization’s operational control. The new supply chain focus supports the EICC Code in a way not seen before, as the Code weighs heavily on supply chain management.

“Linking GRI and EICC” includes descriptions and comparisons of each sustainability guidelines’ implementation strategies, purposes, tools and resources, sustainability principles, requirements and frameworks. In addition to case studies from Dell, IBM, Intel, and Qualcomm, the report includes tables that list EICC Code components with GRI G4 indicators that contain similar sustainability information and requirements. By effectively linking the EICC Code and the GRI G4, a company producing an annual sustainability report will experience a higher quality and more efficient reporting process.

This publication, released by ISOS, comes at an important time when many in the electronics industry are being required to file conflict mineral reports in addition to their voluntary annual sustainability reports.  It is with great hope that users of this document and the more detailed linkage worksheet will be able to streamline efforts - when time can be best spent implementing improvement measures.

About ISOS Group

ISOS Group is a leading sustainability services agency. They work with organizations of all sizes and business sectors across the globe to provide tools and guidance in integrated sustainability reporting. Their expertise includes training and certification, consultancy to guide organizations throughout the reporting cycle, stakeholder engagement and materiality, content development, branding and design, third party assurance and external recognition. ISOS Group is a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Certified Training Partner and a CDP Silver Education and Training Partner in the U.S.

To learn more about ISOS Group, visit their website http://isosgroup.com/.

You can download a free copy of the “Linking EICC and GRI”summary, while the ready-made excel spreadsheet (listing all the GRI indicators and linking them with the corresponding EICC Code principles) can be downloaded for a fee from: http://www.isosgroup.com/research/GRI-EICC