Request for Proposals:

Development of capacity building workshops to

improve GRI sustainability report

© GRI (2020)
About GRI
GRI is an international independent organization that has pioneered corporate sustainability
reporting since 1997. GRI helps businesses, governments and other organizations understand and
communicate the impact of business on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human
rights, corruption and many others.

With thousands of reporters in over 110 countries, GRI provides the world’s most trusted and
widely used standards on sustainability reporting, enabling organizations and their stakeholders to
make better decisions based on information that matters. Currently, over 40 countries and regions
reference GRI in their policies. GRI is built upon a unique multi-stakeholder principle, which
ensures the participation and expertise of diverse stakeholders in the development of its standards.
GRI’s mission is to empower decision-makers everywhere, through its standards and multi-
stakeholder network, to take action towards a more sustainable economy and world.

Our Vision is:

A thriving global community that lifts humanity and enhances the resources on which all life
depends.

Our Mission is:

To empower decisions that create social, environmental and economic benefits for everyone.

Corporate Sustainability and Reporting for Competitive

Business
The continued globalization of supply chains provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)
in developing countries with vast opportunities to access new markets and to thereby contribute
to more and sustainable growth and poverty reduction. SMEs play a crucial role in emerging
economies where they act as key engines of job creation and income generation, contributing to
up to 45% of total domestic employment and 33% of national income (GDP). Notwithstanding,
these companies often struggle to meet the increasingly stringent global demands for sustainable
business conduct, which has become a crucial factor for competitiveness and market access, and
thus a de facto barrier to trade.

Multinational Enterprises (MNEs) are increasingly held to account by various stakeholders for
adverse sustainability impacts, occurring in their production cycles, even if those impacts are not
incurred directly by themselves but by firms in their supply chains. A key means for MNEs to
mitigate these risks is therefore to request sustainability information from their suppliers, which
is done by a growing number of MNEs such as Nestle, Walmart, Unilever or Microsoft.

Many SMEs in the global value chains (GVCs), however, do not yet comply with these requirements.
In 2015 only 10% of sustainability reports worldwide were issued by SMEs.1 Most SMEs do not
have the knowledge, or are reluctant to invest the necessary resources, as to them the business
case for sustainability reporting is not clear. However, in recent years, it has become evident that
sustainability reporting is a critical competitive differentiator to enter GVCs and thus a central
tool for SMEs to improve their competitiveness and market access possibilities. A 2014 study1
conducted by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), an international organization providing the
world’s leading sustainability reporting framework, revealed that the business case is evident for
those SMEs that do report. According to them, sustainability reporting had improved productivity,
reduced costs, strengthened their competitiveness and opened up new markets.

1
https://www.globalreporting.org/resourcelibrary/Ready-to-Report-SME-booklet-online.pdf
The CSRCB programme focuses to further strengthen the business case of sustainability reporting
for SMEs and suppliers for which sustainability reporting is increasingly being demanded, i.e. on
firms that have an evident untapped potential for improved market access through sustainability
reporting. The external review also recommended that the programme be expanded to the
demand side of the sustainability reporting by supporting the report users (e.g. civil society
organizations and investors) as a key driver for sustainability reporting as well as to policy makers
in view of strengthening the enabling environment aiming at helping build enabling policies for
sustainability, sustainable development and sustainability reporting.

The emphasis of this programme is on:

• Scaling up outreach by working locally and through the value chains, by making
the reporting process more user friendly and strongly investing in capacity
building for SMEs in specific value chains.
• Further building the business case of sustainability reporting for SMEs by sharing lessons
learned on how reporting has benefitted other SMEs.
• Enabling the strengthening of policies for sustainability reporting and supporting data users
to push for more transparency and accountability in value chains

GRI’s intervention on SMEs and suppliers

GRI seeks to help SMEs engages in the CSRCB program to ease their understanding and application
of a GRI sustainability report so they can improve the quality of the disclosures.

Objective
To structure a series of interactive workshops, its methodology and online socialization in order
to help SMEs and suppliers to understand the GRI disclosures that they need to report and help
them to improve the quality of their sustainability reports. These series of interactive workshops
should be developed for face-to-face and online training.

Report preparers

Professionals struggle to understand, collect and report GRI’s disclosures, and most of them are
uncertain if their understanding of the disclosure they need to report is correct or not, so the
information they are disclosing. GRI, through the CSRCB programme will help companies to
improve the quality of their sustainability report by conducting a series of interactive face-to-face
or online workshops regarding the following disclosures:

Economic Serie
GRI 201: Economic Performance 2016
- Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed
- Disclosure 205-1 Operations assessed for risks related to corruption
- Disclosure 205-2 Communication and training about anti-corruption policies and
procedures
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

Environmental Serie
GRI 301: Materials 2016
- Disclosure 301-1 Materials used by weight or volume
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 302 Energy 2016

- Disclosure 302-1 Energy consumption within the organization
- Disclosure 302-4 Reduction of energy consumption
 • Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 305: Emissions 2016

- Disclosure 305-1 Direct (Scope 1) GHG emissions
- Disclosure 305-1 Energy Indirect (Scope 2) GHG emissions
GRI 306: Effluents and Waste 2016
- Disclosure 306-1 Water discharge by quality and destination
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

Social Serie
GRI 401: Employment 2016
- Disclosure 401-1 New employee hires and employee turnover
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 403: Occupational Health and Safety 2016

- Disclosure 403-1 Workers representation in formal joint management-worker health and
safety committees
- Disclosure 403-2 Types of injury, occupational diseases, lost days, and absenteeism, and
number of work-related fatalities
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 404: Training and Education 2016

- Disclosure 404-2 Programs for upgrading employee skills and transition assistance
programs
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 405: Diversity and Equal Opportunity 2016

- Disclosure 405-1 Diversity of governance bodies and employees
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 408: Child labor 2016

- Disclosure 408-1 Operations and suppliers at significant risk for incidents of child labor
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 413: Local Communities 2016

- Disclosure 413-1 Operations with local community engagement, impact assessment, and
development programs
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

GRI 418: Customer Privacy 2016

- Disclosure 418-1 Substantiated complaints concerning breaches of customer privacy and
losses of customer data
• Including GRI 103- Management Approach for each material topic

Project framework, requirements and timeline

Background:

GRI has implemented a cooperation project in Colombia funded by the Swiss Government SECO.
As part of these activities, GRI implemented activities to promote the reporting practice within
SMEs and suppliers by strongly investing in capacity building for these companies through
Implementation Partners.
Those activities included:

– Sensitization sessions
– Trainings to develop a GRI-Referenced sustainability report and the use of the Digital
Reporting Platform
– Follow-up sessions to clarify issues about the report

Scope
This project aims to provide to GRI a clear structure and interactive methodology to deliver face-
to-face and online workshops targeting reporters; these workshops should help them to
understand, collect the data of each disclosure mentioned above and as a result to improve the
quality of their reports. Also, the project includes the delivery of the first round of online
workshops, GRI will provide the platform to deliver this first round of workshops.

The deliverable requirements

– Follows rigorous educational structure

– Include a syllabus
– Include a minute to minute script
– It should be interactive; including a variety of creative of methods and activities that serves
the aim.
– Include the use of information of technology such as Apps
– It should be in Spanish language
– Include the correct use of citations (APA)

Deliverables
– Tool kit for the development of the workshops including:
• A syllabus
• A minute to minute script
• A set of power point presentation according with GRI’s branding
– To deliver the first round of workshops

Resources available
– The selected applicant will have access to GRI staff, the reports database, content from
the CSRCB program, and other assets as needed.

Profile and attributes of the applicant(s)

GRI seeks the following attributes and experience:
– Demonstrated experience and knowledge in GRI sustainability reporting (please refer
three companies you have consulted).
– Demonstrated experience developing innovative face-to-face and webinars (please submit
2 workshops prepared).
– Expertise planning, developing interactive workshops
– Knowledgeable on the correct use of citations (APA).
– We are open to multi-partner consortia.
– This RfP is open to all type of applicant(s), e.g. consultants, NGOs, CSOs and academia.

Time schedule
– RfP posted: April the 1st, 2020
– Expression of interest due by April 8, 2020 (simple email stating the organization’s
name and interest).
 – Proposals due by April 17, 2020
– Consultant selected by April 24, 2020
– Delivery of the complete set including the syllabus, the script and the set of power point
presentation: May 22, 2020, and the first round of online workshops delivered: before
June 19, 2020; GRI will provide the digital platform for this delivery.

Budget
GRI welcomes proposals for development of the research proposal. All costs should be
indicated and included in the respondents proposed budget. We trust that the project
framework, requirements and timeline are sufficiently described for interested respondents to
provide a detailed budget. Depending on the team constellation and experience, we estimate the
total number of working days to be between 40-45.

Benefits
– This project is a great opportunity for applicants that wish to engage with GRI

Evaluation and selection of applications

All proposals will be evaluated based on the below scheme. The outcome of this evaluation will
be taken into consideration in our selection process. Proposals should be no longer than 5 pages
of a Word document or pdf, plus the 2 papers as Annexes.

Proposal components Maximum points

that can be awarded
1. General information
1.1 Name of the organization, number of employees and location of No points rewarded
offices
1.2 Vision and mission and time of establishment of the organization No points rewarded
1.3 Name, position, academic background, and relevant work 10
experience of project members (GRI expects that they should be
fully engaged in the execution of the project)

2. Demonstrated experience and knowledge

2.1 of sustainability reporting 10
2.2 of GRI’ Standard disclosures 10
2.3 planning, preparing, developing and delivering face-to-face 10
training workshops
2.4 planning, preparing, developing and delivering webinars training 10
workshops

3. Outline of the research document & description of the

methodology
3.1 vision of the face-to-face and webinar training workshops 10
3.2 outline of the syllabus 10
3.2 description of the proposed methodology 13

4. Project outline & activities, milestones and timeline from 7

start of the project in February to delivery in late March

5. Budget 10

Maximum points 100

Note: Availability to conduct this project from April 24 to June 19, 2020.

Response
Expressions of interest are due by April 8 and full proposals by April 17, 2020, both via email:

GRI Regional Hub Hispanic America

Andrea Pradilla
latam@globalreporting.org