The importance of this Standard

GRI 12: Coal Sector 2022 addresses the pressing need for consistent and complete reporting on the coal sector’s wide-ranging and profound sustainability impacts. While global efforts to mitigate climate change require drastic reductions in coal consumption and production, turning the attention away from businesses that continue to operate in the sector could lead to devastating environmental, socio-economic and human rights consequences. The Standard sets robust expectations for coal organizations to disclose how they respond to the pressing need to transition to a low-carbon economy, and how they manage their impacts along the way.

This Standard supports any coal organization – irrespective of location, specialism or size. It allows coal producers to effectively disclose their most significant impacts on sustainable development, providing the information stakeholders need to meaningfully engage companies on these impacts and make informed decisions. 

GRI 12: Coal Sector 2022 comes in effect for reporting from 1 January 2024, with early adoption encouraged.

The Standard is used together with the GRI Universal Standards and the GRI Topic Standards.

Basis for conclusions

The public comment period for the exposure draft of the Standard ran from 19 May to 30 July 2021.

The Basis for Conclusions for GRI 12: Coal Sector 2022 provides a summary of the significant issues raised through public comments. A complete record of the received comments can be found here. It also provides a summary of how the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), the independent body responsible for setting the GRI Standards, responded to these comments based on the Working Group's discussions and recommendations during the finalization of the Standard. 

About this project

The development of this Standard was prioritized based on the sector’s widely documented impacts across economic, environmental, and social dimensions.

The GSSB appointed an expert multi-stakeholder Working Group to develop the contents of the Standard.

Though the project originally intended to create a Standard applicable to oil, gas, and coal, during the course of the project, the GSSB decided to split its scope and develop separate Standards instead – one for oil and gas, and one for coal. The development of these standards follows different timelines. For more information, please consult the meeting paper. Learn more about the Sector Standard Project for Oil and Gas.

The project will follow the GSSB’s  Due Process Protocol, the implementation of which will be overseen by the  Due Process Oversight Committee.