GRENELLE LAW AND GRI: A COMPARISON ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL DISCLOSURE OF THE THREE LARGEST MINING COMPANIES IN THE WORLD

This study aimed to analyze whether the environmental information released voluntarily, based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), by the three largest companies in the world's mining sector (BHP, VALE, and Rio Tinto) in 2019 meet the guidelines imposed compulsorily, by the Grenelle II Law of France. A comparison was made between the 32 indicators of the environmental dimension of the GRI with the environmental indicators of the French Law Grenelle II. Therefore, the research is classified as qualitative, documentary, and descriptive. The results showed that the topics imposed by the Grenelle II Law were not fully covered by the GRI in the companies' reports, when BHP, Rio Tinto, and Vale showed 10, 8, and 6 of the 12 topics present in the Law, respectively. The most cited topic was "Employee training programs in environmental protection", with more than 25% total of all citations and in contrast, "Financial provisions for environmental risks" was not mentioned by any of the companies. The voluntary format does not allow comparisons between organizations and makes what would be required by the Grenelle II Law more flexible.