The 197 state parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) have formally reaffirmed the role of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) in standardising corporate disclosures related to land use, drought resilience, and soil health.
In the final negotiated decisions report from COP17, held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, UNCCD Parties explicitly welcomed the strategic partnership established with GRI. The resolution instructs the UNCCD Secretariat and its implementation body, the Global Mechanism, to expand collaboration with GRI to leverage voluntary corporate disclosures in support of national Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets.
The decision addresses critical information gaps regarding land health measurement, encouraging companies to align internal environmental targets with national LDN frameworks. Utilising GRI Standards for land, water, and biodiversity impact reporting provides governments and financial markets with benchmarked data on private sector supply chain impacts.
Key operational outcomes and partnership activities include:
- LDN framework alignment: Integration of corporate land impact metrics into national UNCCD monitoring frameworks to evaluate private sector contributions towards combatting desertification.
- Corporate case studies: Publication of joint UNCCD-GRI operational case studies featuring agribusiness Olam Agri and mining group Rio Tinto, demonstrating how existing sustainability reporting structures support land and water management.
- Capacity building & policy: Technical cooperation spanning pre-COP delegate training, Business4Land initiative engagements, and ongoing advisory roles with the UNCCD Global Mechanism.
Robin Hodess, Chief Executive Officer of GRI, stated: “At COP17, the conversation moved beyond corporate commitments. What matters now is to turn what companies know about their impacts on land, water and biodiversity into decisions that strengthen sourcing, operations and value chain resilience. As the UNCCD Parties have recognized, consistent impact reporting is needed to help make that possible. Corporate impact data is most powerful when it is used, in this case, to set credible targets and to support action where it is needed most. Information builds resilience, which is essential while land degradation neutrality is still possible.”
