Strengthening global standards on workers’ rights and protection: EFRAG’s comment letter to GRI now available

EFRAG issues a comment letter welcoming the GRI’s efforts to strengthen the GRI Standards on workers’ rights and protections, and acknowledging the significant progress achieved.

EFRAG reviewed the amendments proposed by GRI across the four topical standards included in the December 2025 Exposure Drafts (GRI LRBR: Labour Rights in Business Relationships, GRI FACB: Freedom of Association and Collective Bargaining, GRI CL: Child Labour and GRI FL: Forced Labour) and highlights:

  • Strong support for GRI’s labour standards update and global alignment goal
    EFRAG welcomes the improvements and supports enhanced sustainability reporting, especially efforts to maintain interoperability with ESRS.
  • Interoperability with ESRS is generally strong but needs further refinement
    Both frameworks share a human rights and due diligence foundation.
  • Further alignment of key concepts and terminology needed
    Aligning on the scope and definition of workers who are not employees and business relationships is critical as per feedback from preparers.
  • Need for clarification of the role of the new LRBR standard
    The purpose, scope, and interaction of the Labour Rights in Business Relationships (LRBR) standard with other GRI standards topical standards and universal standards could be described.

This comment letter contributes to GRI’s due process and was prepared through an interoperability lens, ensuring benefits and efficiencies for preparers. This interoperability allows ESRS reporters to effectively report “with reference” to GRI with their Sustainability Statement, whilst acknowledging that GRI topical standards can serve as a source of entity-specific information. Aligning key concepts and definitions between ESRS and GRI is therefore critical to enhance interoperability.

EFRAG supports every step towards better global sustainability reporting, as illustrated by the joint interoperability mapping issued in 2023 and ongoing efforts to further enhance interoperability.

Gemma Sanchez Danes, EFRAG Social Director: “We welcome the progress made in the Labour project and are pleased to continue our close collaboration with GRI on the revision of their standards. The constructive exchange between our organisations reflects the strength of our relationship and underscores our shared commitment to fostering high-quality and globally aligned sustainability reporting.”

Read now EFRAG's full comment letter

Want to see the comment letter at a glance? Here are the 4 key takeaways

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