Background
Choosing the issues and indicators to report on, and determing the boundaries of responsibility of whom to report on, are the most fundamental decisions in the preparation of any report. Getting these areas right is arguably the key to making sustainability reporting a valuable exercise for report preparers and users, and to ensuring the right balance on the amount of detail and breadth of content in a report.
The process of assessing materiality, defining report content and setting boundaries are fundamentally tied to making sustainability reporting a strategic planning exercise. Put into plainer language, materiality and boundaries can be understood as:
· What sustainability issues are important for my organization to manage and monitor in terms of performance?
· How far does my responsibility for sustainability impacts extend? Where in the production chain should my organization focus its sustainability efforts?
These are core questions for any standard risk assessment process. Despite the importance of these questions to good reporting processes, they represent the most difficult and underdeveloped areas for most companies. They are also the least systematized aspects of reporting.
Many companies have indicated that they are uncertain how to use it in practice and how it can help change their resulting reporting. In some cases, the issue is simply confusion about how to approach establishing thresholds for defining materiality. In other cases, there is a concern about how report readers understand materiality and how the different views should be reflected in reports.
A need therefore exists to provide more practical guidance on defining material issues and indicators.
G3 Updates: Content & Materiality Project Area
To answer this need, GRI is launching a project to create a protocol
· Protocol for Defining Content and Materiality
· Determining whether updates to the Boundary Protocol are needed
· Recommendations for edits to the G3 Guidelines (if needed)
For more information on the Working Group, please consult the
Terms of Reference.
The deliberations of the Working Group will be supported by research undertaken
by the GRI Secretariat in collaboration with regional partners. The research will
focus on current practice around defining report content and material topics.
Research is on an international level as well as a first regional project with PWC
Brazil have started. Results will be made available through Workshops as well as
via summary publications which will be available in the future from this page.
Project supporters: