Making corporate land action count
Published date: 18 September 2026
UNCCD Parties reaffirm GRI’s role in advancing land-related corporate disclosure
Corporate transparency is a prerequisite for turning land restoration commitments into measurable progress and business resilience. This premise is reflected in the final negotiated outcome of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP17 – which reaffirms the role of impact reporting in making corporate action on land comparable and meaningful.
COP17 concluded last month in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The COP17 Decisions Report is now available, and the 197 UNCCD Parties explicitly welcome the partnership established with GRI. They request that the UNCCD Secretariat and Global Mechanism (its implementation arm) continue to work with GRI to leverage voluntary land-related corporate disclosure.
The decision calls for closer alignment between corporate land targets and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) targets. This responds to wider gaps identified by UNCCD in the information and methods available to measure land health and resilience. Consistent corporate information supports this work by providing evidence on where impacts occur, how they are managed and what changes as a result.
For businesses, land degradation, drought and water stress present risks to operations, sourcing, and value chains. Land-related impact information – as supported by use of the GRI Standards – enables those risks to be identified and managed. For governments, more consistent corporate disclosure can provide crucial evidence on the private sector’s contribution to their LDN goals while fostering business resilience.
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.”
Robin Hodess, CEO of GRIGRI contributed to the COP17 agenda, through its partnership with the UNCCD Global Mechanism and Business4Land initiative, as well as in pre-COP capacity-building for delegates and policy recommendations.
During COP17, UNCCD and GRI published case studies with Olam Agri and Rio Tinto, showing how existing sustainability reporting can strengthen action on land, water and biodiversity.
Following the COP17 decision, GRI will continue its technical cooperation with the UNCCD Secretariat and Global Mechanism, so that corporate disclosure on land-related impacts can support action, monitoring and accountability under the Convention.