Analysis of Materiality Assessment Methods

Abstract

Companies must determine what environmental sustainability information should be (and should not be) reported in their Corporate Sustainability Reports. One way to do this is to perform a materiality assessment of the sustainability information. Materiality assessments identify and prioritize information that matters to stakeholders and to the company. A company may be mandated to perform a materiality assessment by a regulation or directive. Some voluntary sustainability reporting frameworks require a materiality assessment. Companies may also choose to perform a materiality assessment to efficiently allocate resources. The problem is that there is no universal definition of materiality for sustainability information, and there are multiple ways to perform an assessment. Companies are challenged with selecting an appropriate method. This Masters Project reviews five methods for identifying and prioritizing material sustainability information. Sustainability materiality assessments performed by large manufacturing firms were examined. Recommendations were made for a specific client as to how they should perform a materiality assessment of their own sustainability information.