Materiality assessments have become a given for the majority of companies today. Approximately 80% of companies conduct them, often incorporating some level of stakeholder engagement. However, despite their widespread adoption, many organizations encounter significant challenges when performing these assessments.
Often, the process relies heavily on spreadsheets, which can be cumbersome and complex. This manual approach frequently results in a high resource intensity for the teams involved in preparing for and conducting stakeholder engagement. The process of working with stakeholders to gather their views and insights itself can also present various hurdles. Additionally, companies often engage advisors and consultants, which can lead to high costs.
Chief Sustainability Officers or Sustainability Managers often wonder why their in-house ESG teams struggle with materiality assessments, expecting the process to be handled with ease. Instead, it frequently becomes a yearly "sprint" that feels like a drain on resources, money, and energy. Due to the complexity, the task is often dreaded. The common sentiment is that it should be a lot easier.
This is precisely the problem that dedicated technology aims to solve, offering a way to alleviate this burden, streamline the effort, and significantly save time and cost.
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How to Conduct a Double Materiality Assessment
What is Double Materiality?
Double materiality combines two ESG lenses:
- Impact Materiality (GRI): How your company affects people, the planet, and society
- Financial Materiality (ISSB/SASB): How ESG issues affect your business performance
This dual view forms the backbone of CSRD compliance and smart sustainability strategy.
How Socialsuite Simplifies the Process
Socialsuite’s Double Materiality Assessment tool offers a structured, scalable, and standard-aligned approach that replaces spreadsheets and manual workflows with a single, intuitive platform. Here’s how the process works:
1. Centralize Past Work
Import previous materiality assessments, stakeholder maps, research insights, value chain data, and competitive benchmarking into the platform, creating one centralized hub. This ensures continuity, avoids duplication, and saves time, especially as employees turnover or when you revisit the process annually.
2. Select and Customize Framework-Aligned Topics
Choose from preloaded topics aligned with GRI, ISSB, and SASB standards. You can refine this list based on your industry, competitor benchmarking, or past assessments and even add custom topics tailored to your organization’s unique ESG considerations.
3. Engage Stakeholders with Targeted Surveys
Build and send surveys tailored to specific stakeholder groups (e.g., customers, employees, executive team, investors) and the type of materiality (impact vs. financial). Customize rating scales, add comment boxes for qualitative insights, and track response progress—all within the platform.
4. Capture Interviews and Workshops
Log interviews, workshops, or focus groups by recording attendees, discussion points, ratings, and qualitative feedback. This captures richer stakeholder insights and supports the inclusion of expert proxies for hard-to-reach voices like nature or future generations.
5. Analyze, Score, and Define Material Topics
Normalize and weight inputs from surveys and interviews. Configure thresholds to determine what’s material from both impact and financial perspectives, with flexibility for manual adjustments. All data feeds into a real-time, visually intuitive analysis module.
6. Generate Shareable Outputs for Reporting
Automatically produce materiality matrices, score tables, and summaries that align with reporting frameworks. Export outputs for board decks, disclosures, or sustainability reports at any time to stay ready for internal validation or external publication.
A Scalable Tool with Long-Term Value
Even if you’re not yet in scope to align with mandatory regulations like the CSRD, Socialsuite gives you the structure and support to start strong and scale as needed.
- 14-day free trial
- Built-in learning via Socialsuite Academy
- Used by ESG consultants and in-house teams alike
Want to see how it works?
Start your free trial of the Double Materiality Assessment tool.
