It's all very well that most companies by now claim to report along the guidelines of GRI. However, even the ones that indeed do so (there are a few hundreds that only claim but are not approved) seem to get some problems with this. A WestLB study on GRI (published in September 2007) sums up.
“… it is still not easy (if not impossible) to draw the link between (perceived) report quality and the actual sustainability performance of a company. It is still far from possible to draw the conclusion ‘great report = great company’.”
And indeed, it is kind of surprising that companies may report well and still are obviously not even near to be a "great company". A telling example might be Siemens, building up 'slush funds' from 2000 - 2007, whilst sitting on the GRI committee.
On a broader sense: What does this mean for indices anyway?
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