The Materiality Assessment is a complex and demanding task, mandatory to conduct under the CSRD. Our holistic tool features an auditor approved approach, supported by ready-to-use templates to support this crucial part of your company’s ESG reporting.
2024 will mark the start of ESG reporting under the CSRD. The initial step of preparation for the upcoming requirements is to conduct a Materiality Assessment, which aims to identify material sustainability topics to include in the report, considering the company-specific sustainability context. In doing so, the double materiality concept must be applied, impacts, risks and opportunities must be assessed, and stakeholders must be involved in the process. Horváth developed an auditor-approved, all-in-one tool to complete the first part of the CSRD journey successfully and smoothly.
As we explain in our article about the Double Materiality Assessment, this process is complex and requires a structured and efficiently designed approach to lay the foundation for the subsequent gap analysis and gathering reporting content. Horváth understands that this a challenging endeavor, since the organizational set-up of ESG reporting is not yet clearly defined in many companies and the Materiality Assessment requires coordination of many internal and external stakeholder groups. Thus, we created a fit-to-standard tool, reflecting the seven steps of our project approach, aligned with the EFRAG Guidance process steps.
![[Translate to English:] Double Materiality Assessment: How to identify Sustainability Reporting topics under the CSRD](fileadmin/user_upload/HORV_Grafik_Web-Artikel_Wesentlichkeit_01_lk.png "[Translate to English:] Double Materiality Assessment: How to identify Sustainability Reporting topics under the CSRD")
1. Materiality concept: With our timeline blueprints for the initial assessment and the review processes in subsequent years there is no need to worry about tediously setting up timelines. This way, your company will hit the ground running as soon as possible. .
2. Material topic long-list: To compile an extensive long-list of potentially relevant sustainability matters without days and weeks of research, our tool features a pool of various sources beyond the ESRS topics like GRI, SASB and other frameworks – with a few clicks we obtain a working basis to enrich with company-specific matters.
3. Material topic short-list: Next, we cluster and prioritize the topics into the short-list, which then forms the basis for the IRO evaluation and stakeholder survey.
4. Stakeholder survey & 5. Impact, risk and opportunity analysis: A focal aspect of the Materiality Assessment is the involvement of relevant stakeholder groups, as set out in ESRS 1 sub-chapter 3.1. Our stakeholder engagement concept provides guidance on which groups to involve through which formats and features ready-to-use questionnaires and interview guidelines – all following the international standard on Stakeholder Engagement AA1000.
6. Material topic prioritization: The materiality matrix finally translates the results of the stakeholder survey and IRO Assessment into a tangible visual format. Our tool automatically creates the matrix and allows to simulate various reporting scenarios for diverging thresholds and quantifications. Moreover, the tool allows various options for visualization.
7. Strategy and reporting implications: To derive the final reporting implications, we jump into our ESRS checklist to conduct the last step of the Materiality Assessment on the most granular level for the metrics on data point level. And the best part is: The journey does not end here – the checklist allows a seamless transition into the gap analysis.
To conclude: What may look daunting and difficult to manage at first sight, becomes clearly structured and easy to maneuver in as short as only ten weeks time with our project approach and the fit-to-standard tool.
Do not hesitate to contact us for further information and get your Materiality Assessment started with Horváth.
