Our Materiality Assessment Lenses

As a sustainability consultancy, we engage organizations as a set of systems (teams, departments, etc.) embedded within systems (local residents, regional partners, national and global influences, etc.). When developing recommendations, we employ several overlapping sustainability lenses:

Lens: Sustainability

Sustainability, when looked at holistically, combines social and economic results with a focus on the environment, which is highlighted in many sustainability efforts. Although the environment is a component of sustainability, at its core, sustainability is human-centric. Degrading our natural systems puts our health, well-being, and the stability and longevity of our organizations at risk.

Lens: Climate Crisis

Current levels of greenhouse gas emissions have committed our global communities to several decades of unprecedented socio-economic-environmental disruption. To stabilize systems, prevent an elongation of that window, and avoid increasing severity of disruptions, immediate action is required. 

Lens: Regenerative Practices

Sustainability strives to keep systems stable for future generations, but our current systems are already in a degraded state. To restore what has been lost, we need regenerative practices—a positive approach that adds back more than it takes away.

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Our Approach

We work with you to engage key parties in the development and implementation of a materiality assessment. The use of materiality assessments as an organizational sustainability tool results in a competitive advantage over market peers by supporting risk mitigation, enhancing key party engagement, and providing strategic focus.

Our materiality assessment process is tailored to organizational outcomes and advances through multiple steps – beginning with tactical engagement of prioritized key parties, before narrowing focus and engagement to produce a refined selection of material topics.

 

1. Peer Benchmarking & Industry Research

We pair a comprehensive review of the sustainability, climate action, and ESG efforts of your organization’s peers with extensive research of the latest industry trends to ensure that your planning is grounded in context.

2. Interview Interested Parties

We conduct interviews with internal and external priority participants defined on the interested parties map. A key outcome will be identifying the spectrum of topics most material to your interested parties, which also helps us determine which ESG aspects are relevant to your organization.

3. Survey Interested Parties

We use the results of the interviews to craft an anonymous survey of your organization’s employees and external interested parties, narrowing the spectrum of topics further and prioritizing the most important. We distribute the survey through appropriate channels, ensuring responses come from a representative group.

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