G4 DEVELOPMENT
Second G4 Public Comment Periods
METHODOLOGY FOR ANALYZING FEEDBACK
February 2013
Second G4 Public Comment Periods
METHODOLOGY FOR ANALYZING FEEDBACK
During the second G4 Public Comment Period (PCP) and the Additional Public Comment Period for G4
Thematic Revisions, GRI invited any interested party to provide feedback on the proposed updates to
the Guidelines.
GRI gathered feedback on the G4 Exposure Draft and Thematic Revisions through two formal channels:
1. The online GRI Consultation Platform, which included general and specific survey questions
2. Letters and e-mails to GRI’s Secretariat
The workshops held worldwide by GRI were an additional means to publicize the PCPs, and gather
feedback.
The GRI Consultation Platform presented survey questions and also featured a document review
function for users to make comments on the presented documents.
GRI posed 27 questions regarding the G4 Exposure Draft; eight general questions on structural or overall
impressions of the Exposure Draft, and 19 specific questions on the content areas – Application Levels,
Boundary, Disclosure on Management Approach, Governance and Remuneration, and Supply Chain
Disclosure. For the Thematic Revisions, GRI posed 7 specific questions on the proposals for Anticorruption and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions. Participants could choose which questions to answer.
There formats were used for the questions:
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Questions with the option of selecting ‘Yes’ and no further comments, or selecting ‘No’ and
providing comments. Only a ‘No’ response invited the option to provide comments. This means
that a ‘Yes’ response reflected complete acceptance, while a ‘No’ response may have been
accompanied by explanations of agreement or disagreement with the question
Multiple choice questions, with no option to provide comments
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Methodology for Analyzing Feedback
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Open-ended questions, designed to invite unguided responses and broader feedback
For the submissions to both PCPs, the Secretariat prepared two documents for use by the Working
Groups and TAC members when discussing the feedback. The first document contained a quantitative
and a qualitative analysis of the submissions (see steps 1 and 2 below), and the second presented,
verbatim, all the textual submissions1 (see step 3 below).
Each answer to each of the questions posed online, and each line of all comments submitted online and
offline, was analyzed by the Secretariat.
The analysis followed these steps:
1. Quantitative analysis
The quantitative analysis generated statistics about the submissions, in the form of total
numbers, percentages, and breakdowns by online and offline, constituency, region, personal,
and organizational submissions. Collective submissions2 were highlighted.
Detailed statistics were also generated for each of the 37 general and specific questions posed
online, in the form of total numbers, percentages, and breakdowns by constituency, region,
personal, and organizational submissions.
2. Qualitative analysis
The submissions received through the Consultation Platform, letters and e-mails were analyzed.
a) Categorization
For the qualitative analysis, every textual online and offline submission was reviewed by at
least two staff members of GRI’s Secretariat, to establish commonalities and identify all
individual feedback points.
All textual submissions were then categorized into themes. Nvivo Qualitative Research
Software and Excel were used for this procedure.
Each categorization into a theme was double-checked by other Secretariat staff members,
to ensure that the categorization was correct.
1
Submission: an input of PCP feedback received by GRI through the Consultation Platform, letters or e-mails to GRI’s Secretariat
2
Submission representing the view of more than one individual and/or organization, with a number of signatories
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Methodology for Analyzing Feedback
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Finally, in cases where the feedback received at G4 workshops, held worldwide by GRI, did
not support the themes identified from the online and offline submissions, the nature of the
discrepancy was noted for consideration by the Working Groups and the TAC.
b) Constituency and Regional Analysis of textual feedback
Constituency and regional breakdowns were generated for the themes identified in more
than 10 submissions.
Collective submissions were highlighted for each theme. The Labor constituency submitted
one coordinated global response to the second G4 PCP, and its feedback was highlighted.
3. Verbatim submissions:
The Secretariat prepared a Verbatim Responses document, presenting all textual submissions
exactly as received and grouped by theme. This enabled the Working Groups and TAC to verify
the categorization and the constituency/regional analysis, and form an opinion on the
underlying feedback. It also allowed for the discussion of submissions during meetings.
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Methodology for Analyzing Feedback
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