What Is Double Materiality and Why Does It Matter?

Double materiality expands how businesses evaluate important information, moving beyond traditional financial considerations to include how a company impacts both its financial performance and society and the environment. This dual perspective has emerged as sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting become prominent. It recognizes that a company’s activities can have profound effects on external factors, which can then influence the company itself, helping organizations understand their broader responsibilities.

Understanding Financial Materiality

Financial materiality is the traditional “outside-in” view, focusing on how external sustainability matters affect a company’s financial health, shareholder value, and profitability. Information is financially material if its omission or misstatement could reasonably influence decisions of primary financial statement users, such as investors and lenders, who are concerned with expected financial returns and resource allocation.

For example, climate change can pose financially material risks if it affects physical assets, such as a manufacturing plant vulnerable to increased flooding or extreme weather events. Resource scarcity, like limited water availability for a beverage company, can disrupt supply chains and increase operational costs, directly impacting financial performance. Reputational damage from poor labor practices or environmental incidents could lead to decreased sales and a decline in brand value, influencing revenues and profitability. The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) provides an interactive tool, the SASB Materiality Map, which identifies sustainability-related business issues and their financial materiality across various industries.

Understanding Impact Materiality

Impact materiality, an “inside-out” perspective, focuses on how a company’s operations, products, and services affect society, the environment, and the economy, regardless of immediate financial implications. It considers actual or potential, positive or negative impacts on people and the planet across various time horizons. This expands stakeholders beyond investors to include employees, customers, local communities, and regulatory bodies.

Examples of impact material issues include a company’s carbon emissions contributing to climate change or its discharge of pollutants into local water bodies, affecting aquatic life and community health. Labor practices, such as working conditions or fair wages within a company’s own operations or its extended supply chain, are also considered impact material. Human rights issues, including instances of forced labor or child labor, are considered inherently material due to their profound societal implications, regardless of immediate financial impact. A technology company promoting diversity and inclusion within its workforce, while not directly impacting financial statements, creates a positive societal effect by fostering inclusivity, illustrating an impact material issue.

The Interplay of Double Materiality

Double materiality combines financial and impact perspectives, recognizing that sustainability issues can be material from either or both angles. This framework requires companies to identify and evaluate issues through these two distinct but interconnected lenses, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of a company’s sustainability performance and associated risks.

An issue can be exclusively financially material, meaning it affects the company’s finances but has no direct external impact by the company itself. For instance, a new tax regulation on specific materials might increase a company’s production costs without directly altering its environmental footprint or social impact. Conversely, an issue can be solely impact material, where a company’s actions significantly affect society or the environment but do not immediately or directly translate into financial gains or losses. A company’s minor local air pollution might harm the immediate environment and community health, yet it may not be large enough to trigger significant regulatory fines or reputational damage that would affect its financial statements.

Many sustainability issues are material from both perspectives. High carbon emissions from a manufacturing facility, for example, represent a significant environmental impact due to their contribution to climate change. These emissions also pose financial risks to the company, potentially leading to increased operating costs from future carbon taxes, the risk of stranded assets if regulations tighten, or reduced demand for carbon-intensive products. Double materiality ensures companies consider both the financial ramifications of sustainability matters and their broader societal and environmental responsibilities, leading to a more nuanced understanding of an organization’s overall sustainability landscape and its long-term resilience.

Practical Application and Reporting

Double materiality is a foundational element in sustainability reporting, especially with new regulatory frameworks like the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The CSRD mandates a double materiality assessment for sustainability disclosures, aiming to increase transparency regarding non-financial performance. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), developed by EFRAG, further define the approach and required disclosures under CSRD.

Companies must identify, assess, and disclose sustainability topics material from either a financial or impact perspective, or both. The ESRS require reporting on all material impacts, risks, and opportunities related to business activities and sustainability matters. While ESRS 1 and ESRS 2 are cross-cutting and mandatory, other topical ESRS standards are reported only if deemed material through the double materiality assessment. This helps companies prioritize sustainability efforts and focus reporting on the most relevant issues.

Integrating double materiality into strategy and risk management processes enables companies to proactively address sustainability-related risks and capitalize on opportunities. This involves reviewing the business model and value chain to identify potential impacts, gathering input from various stakeholders, and analyzing both financial and impact risks. The process helps companies define policies, actions, metrics, and targets to track relevant ESG topics, leading to better decision-making and enhanced transparency in their reporting. Companies are expected to disclose the process used to identify and assess material impacts, risks, and opportunities, as well as how these interact with their strategy and business model.