Sustainability Reporting
Sustainability Reporting (GRI)
Things that definitely did not count yesterday may make or break an organization today; what might be important today may turn out to be irrelevant tomorrow. Businesses therefore need to know what counts. The adage, 'what gets counted, counts' is a back to front view. A more realistic mantra for managers to keep in mind is that 'what counts needs to be counted'
New reporting (GRI) and assurance standards (AA1000) emphasize materiality as a crucial principle for deciding what issues and indicators to include, omit, or emphasize in sustainability reporting. The latest 'G3' version puts as much emphasis on the underlying principles of inclusivity, materiality and completeness as it does on the menu of standard disclosure items.The Global Reporting Initiative G3 Guidelines' 'materiality' principle has been revised to cover both significance of impacts and information requirements of stakeholders:
"The information in a report should cover topics and indicators that reflect the organisation's significant economic, environmental, and social impacts or that would substantively influence the assessments and decisions of stakeholders."
The G3 guidelines require that the report prioritize material topics and indicators, but recognizes that the methods or processes used for assessing materiality will need to be defined by each organization.
In G3, the quality of information is also covered by a separate principle of 'accuracy': However, this is related back to the materiality of information to information users: "The specific threshold of accuracy that is necessary will partly depend on the intended use of the information."
StakeWare offers a simple, yet robust framework for determining materiality that is integrated with the SRM module and provides realtime identification of those material issues that could make a major difference to an organization's performance. By mapping the process, assumptions and evidence used for identifying material issues, we enable businesses to work out what is material, and articulate this in credible ways in order to drive learning and innovation. Material information provides the basis for stakeholders and management to make sound judgements about the things that matter to them, and take actions that influence the organization's performance.
StakeWare integrated approach incorporates the GRI G3 framework enabling the automation of stakeholder inclusiveness in materiality testing providing more visibility and helping produce more material reports.