Materiality assessment
A materiality assessment is the process a company uses to identify and rank the sustainability topics that matter most, for its stakeholders and for its business, so it can focus its strategy and reporting on them.
The classic output is a materiality matrix: one axis for the importance of each topic to stakeholders, the other for its importance to the business. The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards popularized the exercise long before the CSRD.
Under the CSRD, the exercise becomes a double materiality assessment with a stricter method: topics are broken down into impacts, risks and opportunities, scored against defined criteria, and the process is documented for the assurance provider. Companies outside the CSRD can still use the simpler version to set priorities, answer EcoVadis or build a CSR roadmap.
Go further
- Materiality assessment: method and examples
- Preparing for CSRD - Understanding the genesis of Double Materiality