Sustainability reporting has long been perceived by many Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as something designed for multinational corporations rather than local businesses. The growing number of international sustainability frameworks, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), has made it increasingly difficult for many businesses to determine where to even begin.
Against this backdrop, the release of the Vietnamese translation of the latest GRI Universal Standards, Sector Standards, and Topic Standards marks more than a language update. By making the world’s most widely-used sustainability reporting standards available in Vietnamese, the GRI aims to help domestic businesses, particularly SMEs, better identify, manage, and disclose their environmental, social, and economic impacts while improving access to international markets and sustainable finance.
Building capabilities
Mr. Nguyen Cong Minh Bao, Country Director of GRI Vietnam, said many SMEs are overwhelmed by the growing number of international sustainability frameworks. “When businesses hear about sustainability, they immediately encounter countless acronyms and reporting frameworks,” he said. “Many simply do not know where to start.”
The Vietnamese translation, he continued, is designed not only to make the standards easier to understand but also to bridge international reporting requirements with Vietnam’s domestic regulatory framework. “Businesses should not see the GRI as another reporting obligation,” he said. “The important point is helping them understand how international standards connect with local regulations so that compliance can simultaneously strengthen competitiveness.” He also noted that investors, lenders, and multinational buyers are increasingly seeking globally-comparable sustainability information when making investment, financing, and procurement decisions.
As a result, sustainability reporting is gradually becoming part of market access rather than simply a voluntary corporate initiative. While large corporations have largely integrated sustainability reporting into their governance systems, SMEs continue to face significant resource constraints.
According to Dr. Allinnettes Adigue, Director of the ASEAN Network at the GRI, the challenge is not unique to Vietnam but reflects a broader trend across ASEAN, where SMEs account for the vast majority of businesses. While sustainability reporting has become increasingly common among listed companies and large corporations, adoption among SMEs remains limited.
She believes this is not because smaller businesses lack the willingness to report, but because they face three major barriers. First, they typically devote most of their resources to day-to-day operations. Preparing a sustainability report requires additional time, personnel, and financial resources, often forcing businesses to divert attention from more immediate operational priorities.
Second, sustainability reporting remains voluntary for most SMEs. Without mandatory disclosure requirements, many smaller businesses have limited incentives to invest in reporting. By contrast, large corporations often began reporting to comply with stock exchange or regulatory requirements, but over time discovered broader business benefits, including enhanced corporate reputation and stronger relationships with customers and investors. Sustainability reporting has gradually evolved from a compliance exercise into a strategic business tool.
Third, large companies generally have the resources to establish dedicated sustainability teams or appoint a Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). SMEs, however, rarely have that capacity. In many smaller businesses, a single individual may simultaneously serve as chief executive, head of sales, operations manager, and finance manager, leaving little room to develop sustainability reporting.
This is why the GRI has placed particular emphasis on supporting SMEs. As large corporations are increasingly required to disclose sustainability information across their entire value chains, suppliers, many of which are SMEs, are also becoming part of the reporting ecosystem and will need to strengthen their sustainability disclosure capabilities.
Building an SME ecosystem
Dr. Adigue argued that expanding sustainability reporting at SMEs requires more than simply making reporting standards available. Rather, it calls for an enabling ecosystem built on three pillars.
The first is a supportive national policy framework that provides clear regulatory direction. The second is practical support through training programs tailored to the needs and operating realities of SMEs. Such programs should be flexible enough to allow business owners and employees to participate without disrupting day-to-day operations. And the third pillar is financial incentives.
According to Dr. Adigue, SMEs will be far more motivated to invest in sustainability reporting if they see tangible business benefits, such as improved access to financing, stronger eligibility to join global supply chains, or greater opportunities to secure contracts with large corporations. “The most important thing is to support businesses during the early stages of their sustainability journey,” she said.
This is one of the reasons the GRI has launched the STAR Accelerator Programme in Vietnam, offering free training and technical support for SMEs. Unlike large corporations, smaller businesses often lack the financial resources and dedicated personnel needed to develop sustainability reporting capabilities. The program is designed to help them build those capabilities.
She also cautioned SMEs against viewing sustainability reporting solely as a compliance obligation or becoming overwhelmed by the growing number of international reporting frameworks. “Businesses should start by understanding the impacts and risks that are most material to their operations,” she said. “If I were running a small cocoa farm, my biggest concerns today would be climate change, drought, and crop disease. Those are the issues I should be reporting on. You don’t need a 100-page sustainability report from Day 1 covering dozens of topics.”
The GRI was established in the US in 1997 by CERES and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), at a time when corporate disclosure focused almost exclusively on financial performance. “Financial reports could tell you whether a company made a profit or a loss, but they revealed very little about its impacts on society and the environment,” Dr. Adigue said. “A company could be highly profitable while relying on child labor, contributing to deforestation, or accelerating biodiversity loss.”
The Initiative was created to fill that gap by providing companies with a framework to report not only their financial performance but also their environmental, social, and economic impacts. Today, the GRI Standards are used by around 90 per cent of the world’s largest listed companies and 77 per cent of the Global Fortune 250. More than 128 jurisdictions have referenced the standards in sustainability reporting regulations or policies.
Sustainability reporting is gradually becoming part of market access rather than simply a voluntary corporate initiative. While large corporations have largely integrated sustainability reporting into their governance systems, SMEs continue to face significant resource constraints.
According to Dr. Adigue, the standards are developed through a rigorous multi-stakeholder due process involving businesses, regulators, academics, labor organizations, and civil society from around the world. “Every standard undergoes a global public consultation process,” she said. “It typically takes around two years to develop a new standard, ensuring that it is transparent, objective, and practical for organizations across different sectors and markets.”
Turning sustainability into value
The announcement of support for SMEs also marked the GRI’s expansion of regional cooperation through the ASEAN Sustainability & Impact Alliance, with the Golden Gate BCE Group joining the Initiative to support more resilient agricultural value chains across Southeast Asia.
Dr. William L. Nolten, Chairman and CEO of the Golden Gate BCE Group, said the partnership comes at a critical time as forecasts of a super El Niño weather pattern this year point to prolonged drought and intensifying climate-related risks for Vietnam’s agricultural sector. Reducing climate-related risks, he believes, is key to improving access by farmers and SMEs to finance, as lending costs are closely tied to investment risk.
He used cocoa as an example. Vietnam accounts for only around 1 per cent of global cocoa production, while just 5 per cent of global cocoa is used to produce premium chocolate, largely supplied to Belgian brands. Dr. Nolten believes sustainable production could enable Vietnam to enter this high-value segment, creating greater economic value while strengthening the country’s reputation for sustainable cocoa and, ultimately, sustainable coffee.
Golden Gate BCE has so far mobilized around $210 million to support pilot projects demonstrating climate-resilient agricultural models. While modest relative to the scale of Vietnam’s agricultural sector, Dr. Nolten said the investment is intended to prove that the model can be replicated and expanded. “Our competition is not other companies pursuing sustainability,” he added. “Our competition is unsustainable production.”
As international buyers continue to tighten environmental, social, and governance (ESG) requirements across global supply chains, he argued that transparent, traceable, and verifiable sustainability data, supported by internationally-recognized standards such as GRI, will become an increasingly important competitive advantage for Vietnamese businesses.
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