INSIGHTS
Leading companies need to disclose more about their materiality determination processes
Fronesys launches Materiality Futures: joining sustainability to strategy.
As the marketplace applies an increasing focus on sustainability factors, a number of the world’s leading companies are seeking to establish which of their sustainability impacts are material to their business.
The thirty-one companies covered in Materiality Futures, the latest sustainability report from Fronesys, are some of the most transparent, but even with them there is often a real lack of transparency regarding how the materiality process actually works. In particular, the report finds that companies are much more likely to be open about their stakeholders’ understanding of sustainability impacts than their own.
The Materiality Futures report, released today by Fronesys, is authored by Chris Tuppen, partner, corporate services, and is the most comprehensive and detailed evaluation of the materiality determination process to date. It investigates how materiality is currently used in the sustainability reporting of thirty one leading global companies (A full list of companies evaluated in the study is included in the press release). From the public disclosures of these companies, a total of 50 different sustainability issues are evaluated in the report in terms of importance to stakeholders and the 31 companies. These cover a diverse range of issues, such as corporate governance, water use, human rights, executive remuneration, carbon and privacy.
Chris Tuppen, partner, corporate services, Fronesys, says: “The report is particularly timely as companies around the world prepare to tie together their financial and sustainability reporting processes into the draft integrated reporting model recently released by the IIRC. In our view, the key link between sustainability and business strategy is materiality, and it is surprising how opaque the processes are by which materiality is determined.”
Read the full press release on the launch of the Materiality Futures report
Check out more information on the Materiality Futures report.
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