Putting materiality at the heart of your sustainability strategy

Developing a robust sustainability strategy requires a range of tools and techniques. Carrying out a Materiality Assessment sits at the heart of that process, helping you to determine the important issues that affect both your business as well as your stakeholders. Done properly, it looks at impacts that businesses have on social, environmental and governance (ESG) issues, as well as how they are impacted by external factors and events. This is known as Double Materiality. 

A fundamental part of the process is conducting a Stakeholder Mapping exercise to identify your key stakeholders, which in turn will also help you to develop your Stakeholder Engagement Plan. 

When integrated with your PESTLE and SWOT analyses, as well as your Value Chain Mapping, conducting a Materiality Assessment emerges as a crucial strategic tool that are not just robust and valuable, but are also proven to offer deep insights into both internal and external business environments.

Conducting the assessment

It is critical that everyone understands what you are doing and why you are doing it before starting the process. Our eBook provides a guide on laying the foundations for a Materiality Assessment, managing expectations and ensuring you have the right resources in place to ensure positive outcomes. It also explores the importance of documenting the process and keeping it under constant review.

We highlight the five key steps to conducting a meaningful assessment:

• Step one

Take a deep dive – Bring people together from across the business to determine what is most material or important to your own organisation. Devise a system to rank them in order of importance.

• Step two

Identify external stakeholders – Who are your stakeholders? Identify the individuals and groups affected by your business operations. That is the starting point for shaping interventions around understanding their priorities.

• Step three

Design and conduct your materiality survey – Seek support in carefully curating your survey, ensuring that questions are pertinent, and the process is accessible for all parties to ensure greater participation.

• Step four

Analyse the results – What do the results tell you? It is time to drill down into the responses, understand what it means and ensure it informs your decision making.

• Step five

Presenting and applying the insights – Create a matrix graph that plots the different indicators and their relative materiality to the business and its stakeholders. Decide how these results will be shared to ensure everyone is engaged.

Trusted sustainability partner 

Not all businesses have the skills or resources to do this alone and our expert consultants at Wylde Connections are experienced in supporting businesses of all sizes in conducting successful materiality assessments. Once the process is complete, we are also on hand to ensure findings are disseminated through ongoing stakeholder engagement and it is used to inform a holistic sustainability strategy.

We can take you through our five-step model of transformative change to develop and implement a robust strategy that embeds sustainable practice. Alongside consultancy support, we also provide a range of learning programmes to accelerate your journey to becoming an ethical and responsible business. Book a Discovery Call today to learn more about the benefits of taking a walk on the Wylde side.

Our team at Wylde Connections has a wealth of experience supporting businesses in embedding sustainability. Our latest eBook Materiality Assessment – the key to successful sustainability provides a step-by-step guide to gathering, analysing and applying the data. 

Book a Discovery Call today to learn more about how Wylde can support you on your sustainability journey and ensure you operate as an ethical and responsible business.