If you followed corporate sustainability news over the last two years, you probably saw the expectation building: Brazil would be the first country in the world to legally require publicly traded companies to publish sustainability financial reports under the international ISSB standards. This requirement, set out by CVM Resolution 193/2023 to begin in fiscal years starting in 2026, was revoked in May 2026 by CVM Resolution 244. In practice, this returned the Brazilian market to a “comply or explain” model: a company may choose not to publish, but must formally communicate that decision. This changes the question every company should be asking now — it’s no longer “are we required to report?” but rather “is it worth reporting even without a requirement?” And this is where the GRI Standards enter the conversation.
It’s important not to confuse the two frameworks that were — and still are — in play. The requirement the CVM walked back specifically concerned the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards (IFRS S1 and S2), internalized in Brazil by the Brazilian Committee for Sustainability Pronouncements as CBPS 01 and CBPS 02. These standards have a financial focus: they assess how climate and sustainability risks impact the company’s value and financial performance, from the investor’s perspective. The GRI Standards, maintained by the Global Reporting Initiative, follow a different, complementary logic: they measure the company’s impact on society and the environment, from the perspective of multiple stakeholders — communities, employees, suppliers, government, not just shareholders.
This difference explains why the CVM’s decision doesn’t make the GRI Standards irrelevant. Many Brazilian companies already published GRI reports voluntarily, long before any discussion of ISSB requirements — and will continue to do so, because institutional investors, large corporate clients, and bidding processes frequently request this type of evidence regardless of what the CVM requires from publicly traded companies. Privately held companies, suppliers within large production chains, and organizations seeking financing from development banks continue to have strong commercial incentives to report under this standard, with or without a law.
There is even a specific strategic argument for voluntarily reporting right now, at the moment the requirement has just been walked back: companies that choose to keep publishing consistently distinguish themselves precisely by the absence of an obligation. In a “comply or explain” scenario, the market becomes better able to distinguish who reports out of management conviction and who would only report under regulatory pressure — and that distinction tends to weigh on credit decisions, partnerships, and brand reputation.
In practice, a sustainability report structured under the GRI Standards requires organized data across the three ESG pillars, with standardized indicators that allow comparison between companies and over time — which is only sustainably achievable with an ESG management system behind it, not with manual compilations done once a year under deadline pressure. That’s exactly the role of an ESG management platform: turning report production from a stressful annual event into a continuous process of organizing evidence.
It’s worth reinforcing that this CVM regulatory relaxation is not the end of the story — it’s a live topic subject to further changes, as Brazil continues to follow the international movement around ISSB standards. Companies that decide to stop tracking the topic because the requirement was suspended risk being caught off guard by a future regulatory change, and in the meantime, lose the opportunity to position themselves as a voluntary benchmark for transparency.
GETS CARBON’s ESG platform organizes the evidence needed to structure consistent sustainability reports, with or without a legal requirement. Talk to a GETS CARBON specialist and assess how to turn voluntary transparency into competitive advantage.
