Sustainability reports database: next steps with Corporate Register

I just returned from a day in London where a colleague and I visited the small but lively office of corporateregister (www.corporateregister.com) - this is the group that brings you the free database of PDF reports, ReportAlert services, and now EventAlert services. Last October (in conjunction with the release of the G3 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines) GRI formed a partnership with corporateregister to merge our reports databases - and corporateregister would become the host of the GRI reports registry.

It's just over eight months since we shifted from hosting our own database to working with corporateregister to host it and it was a good time for a check in. In general we were really impressed with their ability to track reports - they monitor 7000 companies, of which only 3500 issue reports currently, so they can pick up new reports as soon as they come out. At least two sets of eyes at corporateregister look the report over before it is posted, and dozens of data points are gathered on each one. We feel pretty confident that the data they present are accurate and current.

A few technological challenges remain - such as how to ensure reports written in non-Latin scripts (ie. Russian, Chinese) can be featured or counted in the database. For technical and quality reasons corporateregister can't host these in their database, so we are going to actively look for solutions with partners likely in Asia to ensure we have a complete database. Great news is that corporateregister will work on adding some new sort and statistics features on the GRI register this summer. Our database visitors have been asking for these for some months, so we are excited that they will come online soon.

Let me know what resources you would like to see on the GRI register: http://www.corporateregister.com/gri/