The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards are among the most widely used sustainability reporting frameworks in the world. For organisations looking to disclose their environmental performance, GRI provides a structured approach to reporting on waste, materials, emissions, and environmental compliance, all of which directly relate to how you manage electronic waste. Understanding which GRI standards apply and how to report against them helps you produce credible, comparable disclosures that stakeholders trust.
Relevant GRI Standards for E-Waste
Several GRI standards are directly applicable to e-waste reporting. The most relevant include GRI 306 (Waste), GRI 301 (Materials), GRI 305 (Emissions), and GRI 308 (Supplier Environmental Assessment).
GRI 306: Waste
GRI 306, revised in 2020, is the primary standard for reporting on waste generation and management. It requires organisations to report on waste generated by weight and composition, waste diverted from disposal (with breakdown by recovery operation), waste directed to disposal (with breakdown by disposal method), and actions taken to prevent waste generation and manage significant impacts.
For e-waste reporting, this means tracking the total weight of IT equipment retired each year, how much was refurbished and reused (diverted from disposal), how much was sent for materials recycling (diverted from disposal through recycling), how much was sent for energy recovery, and how much, if any, was sent to landfill. In Victoria, where e-waste has been banned from landfill since 1 July 2019, the landfill figure should be zero for compliant organisations.
GRI 306 also asks organisations to describe their approach to preventing waste generation. For IT equipment, this includes extending asset lifecycles, designing procurement specifications that favour longevity and repairability, and implementing circular economy practices like refurbishment and remarketing.
GRI 301: Materials
GRI 301 covers materials used by the organisation, including materials that are recycled or renewable. For e-waste reporting, this connects to the materials recovered through recycling, such as metals, plastics, and glass, and the percentage of recycled content in newly purchased IT equipment.
Reporting recovered materials from e-waste recycling demonstrates the circular economy value of proper disposition. A typical laptop yields recoverable copper, aluminium, steel, gold, palladium, and various plastics. Quantifying these material flows shows how IT asset disposition contributes to resource conservation.
GRI 305: Emissions
GRI 305 covers greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2, and 3. IT equipment is most relevant to Scope 3 reporting, specifically Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services) for new equipment procurement and Category 5 (Waste Generated in Operations) for end-of-life processing.
Reporting emissions associated with IT equipment requires data on the embodied carbon of purchased equipment, emissions from transportation of retired equipment, emissions from processing (recycling, refurbishment, or destruction), and emissions avoided through refurbishment and reuse compared to manufacturing new equipment.
For detailed guidance on Scope 3 emissions from IT equipment, see our practical guide to Scope 3 emissions and IT equipment.
GRI 308: Supplier Environmental Assessment
GRI 308 asks organisations to report on the environmental performance of their supply chain. For IT asset disposition, this means assessing and reporting on the environmental practices of your ITAD provider and any downstream processors they use. Key questions include whether your ITAD provider holds relevant environmental certifications (ISO 14001, R2, e-Stewards), where recycled materials are sent and how they are processed, whether downstream processors operate to acceptable environmental standards, and whether you conduct periodic audits of your ITAD provider’s environmental performance.
Materiality and E-Waste
GRI reporting begins with a materiality assessment to determine which topics are significant for your organisation and stakeholders. Whether e-waste is material depends on the volume of IT equipment your organisation procures and retires, the sensitivity of the data on your equipment, your industry and stakeholder expectations, and the regulatory environment you operate in.
For most medium to large organisations, particularly those in office-intensive industries like financial services, professional services, education, and government, e-waste is likely to be a material topic. The combination of data security risks, environmental impacts, regulatory requirements (especially in Victoria), and stakeholder expectations makes it hard to justify excluding from your materiality assessment.
Data Collection for GRI Reporting
Producing credible GRI-aligned e-waste disclosures requires consistent, verifiable data. The most common challenge organisations face is that e-waste data sits in multiple systems and with multiple parties. Your IT asset register may not reconcile with what your ITAD provider collected, which may not reconcile with what the recycler processed.
Building a reliable data pipeline means maintaining an accurate IT asset register that tracks equipment from purchase to disposition, ensuring your ITAD provider delivers itemised reports that can be reconciled against your asset register, requesting materials recovery data from your recycler (weights of materials recovered by type), obtaining emissions data or factors that allow you to calculate the carbon impact, and establishing a consistent annual reporting cycle that captures all disposition activity.
Presenting E-Waste Data in GRI Reports
GRI disclosures should be specific, quantified, and contextualised. Rather than simply stating that you “recycled IT equipment,” a strong disclosure would include the total weight of IT equipment retired (in tonnes), the number of individual assets processed, the breakdown by disposition method (refurbished and resold, recycled, destroyed), materials recovered (by type and weight), CO2e avoided through reuse and recycling, and year-on-year comparisons showing trends and progress against targets.
This level of detail demonstrates genuine commitment to transparency and gives stakeholders the information they need to assess your performance. For guidance on measuring and reporting your environmental impact from IT disposal, see our guide on measuring the environmental impact of IT disposal.
]]>