Acknowledging Impacts on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Through GRI Reporting

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples invites us to reflect on the importance of safeguarding Indigenous Peoples’ rights and ensuring their well-being. GRI Standards assist organizations in identifying impacts on the economy, society, and environment, providing guidance on how to identify individuals and groups whose interests are affected or could be affected by the organization’s activities, including Indigenous Peoples. This is true regardless of whether a direct relationship exists, as their interests are impacted or could potentially be impacted by the organization’s activities.

Indigenous Peoples are among the groups who have been most severely affected from historical injustices and violations of their rights have become a persistent problem. Indigenous communities face a higher risk of experiencing negative impacts more severely due to an organization’s activities. In addition to their collective rights, each individual belonging to Indigenous Peoples shares universal Human Rights. These Human Rights are inherent to all human beings and include, at a minimum, the rights outlined in the United Nations (UN) International Bill of Human Rights, as well as the principles concerning fundamental rights set out in the International Labour Organization (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. GRI identifies Human Rights as a material topic for all organizations and to prevent from the risk of under reporting this impact, Human Rights disclosures are included in GRI Universal Standards.

GRI developed GRI 411 Rights of Indigenous Peoples Topic Standard, which leads organizations to specially report on incidents involving violations of Indigenous Peoples' rights (Disclosure 411-1). This Topic Standard is also recognized as a likely material topic in our Sector Standards GRI 11 Oil and Gas, GRI 12 Coal, GRI 13 Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing, and the Mining Standard that is currently under development. Companies who identify rights of Indigenous Peoples as a material topic report information for Disclosure 411-1, as well as additional sector-specific disclosures outlined in each sector's standards. Additionally, the project to revise GRI’s Biodiversity Standard is reinforcing how biodiversity impacts can have consequences on Indigenous Peoples and local communities and incorporates organizational disclosures on these impacts.

Learn more about these standards and all of the GRI Standards, which are offered as a free public good to enable transparency and accountability on social, economic and environmental issues at globalreporting.org.

Note that the content disseminated via this newsroom pertains to information concerning the North America perspective. For global updates regarding our organization, please visit GRI’s global newsroom.