The annual Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has increased Ecopetrol’s sustainability rating from Level B to Level A within a year, according to a communique from the petrol company released Tuesday.
Ecopetrol presented its first report in March 2010 and this year the GRI, the global body that sets guidelines for sustainability, found that it complied with the international standard for Category A.
The different category levels reflect the amount of information the company is willing to disclose and how transparent it is in its reporting. The GRI verifies the information that a company provides by selecting specific pieces of information, such as emissions or effluents, and evaluating whether the company’s presentations are valid.
Ecopetrol, the state-owned petroleum company, is the second Colombian company to receive GRI approval. The guidelines contained in the GRI establish the principles and indicators that organizations can use to measure their social, economic and environmental performance.
Marcela Fajardo, head of Ecopetrol’s corporate social responsibility unit, said “The obtaining of a Category A brings Ecopetrol a step closer to excellence in corporate responsibility management. Now the challenge is … to ensure that we achieve the monumental aim of reaching Category A+ in 2015.”
The GRI is an network-based organization that pioneers the use of a framework for world-wide sustainability reporting.