CMA workshop on GRI New Standards

A two day workshop on ‘GRI New Standards’ was organised by the Institute of Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (CMA) in association with South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA) and GRI Focal Point India, on 22-23 July 2014 at Distance Learning Centre in Colombo.

The workshop was inaugurated by CMA President Prof. Lakshman R. Watawala. SAFA Vice President and CA President Arjuna Herath graced the occasion as special guest. The resource persons were Rubina Sen (GRI Focal Point India), Mathsy Kutty and Sunanda Goswami (Infosys Limited India) and Suresh Gooneratne (DIMO Sri Lanka).
This workshop was organised as a follow up to the launch of the latest version of the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Reporting Guidelines G4 in Colombo Sri Lanka on 6 September 2013, to enable participants to understand the essence of sustainability reporting as per GRI G4 guidelines. Participants from the financial sector and consulting bodies from varied organisations took part actively in the interactive workshop.
The workshop gave an opportunity of peer to peer learning from the leading experienced exponents from GRI Focal Point, Infosys & DIMO. The workshop covered global trends of reporting, the main features of GRI G4 Guidelines, Reporting Process and transition from G3.1 to G4. The key highlights of the workshop were a discussion on the application and the use of the guidelines by Infosys & DIMO.
The participants were given an insight into Sustainability Reporting and Integrated Reporting through group exercises. The audience felt that the group exercises were an important and easy method to unravel the concepts related to sustainability reporting. The workshop was designed in a way to have the right balance of learning, debates and group exercises.