Sustainability has become a major topic in multinational companies. They are being heavily scrutinized internally and externally to mitigate and abate the negative outcomes of their operations.

In order to comply with the public opinion and environmental science, many companies have taken onboard sustainability reporting standards not only to monitor their emissions, water usage and waste generation, but also to make this data available to the public and to make it comparable with other companies using the same standards. The overarching norms that have been adopted come from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). Hundreds of businesses are using them as a model to report data each year along with their respective environmental targets.

Based on his experience as an intern at Givaudan SA, the author analyses the role of audits regarding sustainability data gathered by company factories and evaluates the influence of the GRI on reporting quality. Through the lense of waste, this analysis offers true case-studies illustrations the role of the first and the latter on sustainability reporting and high-lights the strengths and shortcomings of these standardised procedures. The methodology used in this paper is based on practical discussions with factories worldwide and colleagues in Vernier (Givaudan headquarters). Regarding the theoretical analysis, the argumentation is supported by a targeted literature review of articles and books about audits, waste and standards.