Why are stakeholders relevant to the materiality assessment process and how do you involve them in a meaningful way?

Undertakings report on sustainability matters based on the double materiality principle. Stakeholders play a crucial role in the materiality assessment. Stakeholders are parties who can affect or be affected by the undertaking. There are two main groups of stakeholders:

Affected stakeholders

Individuals or groups whose interests are affected or could be affected – positively or negatively – by the undertaking’s activities and its direct and indirect business relationships across its value chain.

Examples include own employees and employees in the value chain, suppliers, customers, consumers, end users, local communities, people in vulnerable situations, public institutions. But also: representatives of affected stakeholders, such as employee organisations, trade unions and other experts.

Users of sustainability statements

primary users of general-purpose financial reporting (existing and potential investors, lenders and other creditors, including asset managers, credit institutions, insurance undertakings), and other users of sustainability statements, including the undertaking’s business partners, trade unions and social partners. Civil society and non-governmental organisations, governments, analysts and academics.

Engaging affected stakeholders is critical to the undertaking’s ongoing IRBC due diligence process (see section 4 ESRS set 1 Due diligence) and sustainability materiality analysis. This includes the undertaking's processes for identifying and assessing actual and potential negative impacts, which are then added to the analysis to identify material impacts for sustainability reporting purposes (see section 3.4 of ESRS 2).

To help undertakings with meaningfully involving stakeholders, the SER runs the project meaningful dialogue in international chains. Within this project, the concept design meaningful dialogue has been drawn up.

Questions CSRD & ESRS

Do you have questions about the CSRD, ESRS or are you missing a question in this list? Send us an e-mail and we will contact you as soon as possible. For technical questions, EFRAG has set up an ESRS Q&A platform (latest release of technical explanations: December 2024). Here you can submit a question, and also find answers to previously asked questions.

Questions regarding individual facts or circumstances will not be answered through these channels. For such questions, we recommend that you contact an advisor such as your company accountant.

Disclaimer

The SER and the DASB have put this questions and answers document together based on publicly available information at the time of publication. Although these questions have been answered with the utmost care, users of this document cannot be given any guarantees relating to the accuracy, topicality and completeness of the information displayed. The SER, the DASB and other parties related to this document cannot be held liable for the consequences of the use of the information from this document. This document does not represent the view of (EFRAG) or the European Commission, nor the SER or DASB.

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