GRI: Understanding materiality can unlock accountability

22 February 2022

Why smart companies benefit from a ‘double materiality’ reporting system

With changes under way in the sustainability reporting landscape, clarity on what the scope of the various initiatives are, as determined by their approach to materiality, is essential if organizations are to understand their reporting obligations.

The latest issue of The GRI Perspective - The materiality madness: why definitions matter – demystifies the recent explosion in terminology. It explains the approaches of the GRI Standards (impact materiality), the IFRS’ International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) (financial materiality) and the incoming European Sustainability Reporting Standards (double materiality), and how they interconnect.

The paper sets out that, to meet the expectations of stakeholders, companies need to disclose sustainability information that relates to both financial value creation and their impacts on the environment and society. Taken together, these two approaches are the basis for double materiality. 

Eelco van der Enden, CEO of GRI, said:

“It stands to reason that investor-focused sustainability reporting through the financial materiality lens alone will not allow for companies to be held accountable for their impacts on the environment and people. To suggest otherwise sows confusion and underlines why we need to be clear about the differences and synergies between the various initiatives; in particular, the approaches to materiality and the audiences they serve.

At GRI, we view the ISSB’s sustainability-related disclosure plans and Europe’s incoming Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive as complementary rather than competing. Alongside GRI’s widely-adopted standards for sustainability impacts, there are strong opportunities for alignment between all three.

We believe it is in the interests of all stakeholders to move to a two-pillar corporate reporting structure, with financial and sustainability reporting on an equal footing. The basis of this overarching system has to be double materiality. That is the only way to achieve the comparable and effective reporting needed to drive corporate accountability.”

GRI

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