Materiality assessment
3.3.1 Purpose
Materiality analysis evaluates the insights from the Discovery and Stakeholder Engagement stages to determine which sustainability issues matter most to your organisation and its stakeholders. This ensures that sustainability priorities are: • Evidenced based: grounded in internal and external research, and stakeholder perspectives. • Strategically aligned: considered in relation to wider organisational / event values and objectives • Impactful: focused on areas where you can make the most difference. The findings from this process will inform the next phase, where the sustainability vision, objectives and KPIs will be defined
3.3.2 Process Stakeholder Engagement data
The first step is to collate the stakeholder engagement responses, and analyse the data to identify themes, trends and concerns. This should be structured in a way that allows comparisons across different stakeholder categories, and alignment with the existing Discovery research.
Key considerations during this review:
• Are there any clear patterns or trends across stakeholder groups?
• Are specific issues emerging across multiple categories of stakeholders?
• Does the feedback broadly align with the wider organisational priorities?
• Are any new issues being raised that warrant further investigation?
In cross-checking with discovery research:
• Are of the raised issues already being addressed?
• What are the gaps in current sustainability efforts?
• Are there certain issues which are aligned with industry trends of competitor actions?
3.3.3 Applying a weighting to the responses (optional)
In some cases, applying a weighting to certain stakeholder types or responses can help balance the analysis. This step is optional but may be useful if: • Some stakeholders are strategically more important (e.g. key customers, internal leadership, regulators etc) • Only a sample of a large group was surveyed, requiring an adjustment for more accurate representation • Response rates vary significantly between different stakeholder groups • Certain feedback is tied to compliance or legal obligations If weighting is applied, it should be transparent and justifiable, ensuring that the final analysis reflect stakeholder perspectives and organisational priorities fairly.
3.3.4 Compare findings against organisational priorities and external factors
Once stakeholder data has been processed and (optionally) weighted, the next step is to compare sustainability issues against business priorities and external factors. This helps in filtering and refining which issues should be prioritised. Key considerations: • Alignment with organisational strategy: do these issues support the organisations broader mission, values, and objectives? • Regulatory & compliance factors: are there legal or reporting requirements (e.g. ISO14001, ISO14038, ISO20121, CSRB etc) • Industry and competitive trends: what are similar organisations prioritising? Are there trends emergency in the industry? • Feasibility and resourcing: are these issues realistic and actionable for your particular organisation? A SWOT analysis can be a really useful tool at this stage to simplify the analysis and highlight the key considerations. You may also chose to group or plot emergent key stakeholder priorities issues against organisational objectives, to create a clear visual representation.
3.3.5 Validate and feedback findings
Once issues have been reviewed, prioritised, and aligned with organisational targets, the next step is to consolidate findings into a clear summary. This should include: • Key material issues identified through the process • How these align with the organisational strategy and targets • SWOT analysis and / or materiality mapping results • Any gaps identified that may need further exploration To ensure transparency and alignment, the findings from the materiality analysis should be clearly documented in a structured format, whether as a report, spreadsheet, or presentation. If the organisation is following a sustainability standard or undergoing external assessment, records should be maintained in a way that allows for auditability and verification. Presenting the findings to wider teams or management provides an opportunity to validate priorities, address any outstanding concerns, and secure buy-in before transitioning into strategy development. This step ensures that the organisation moves forward with a sustainability approach that is both data-driven and strategically aligned.