Tom Cooper Raconteur Magazine

Materiality is used to judge the impact that a specific business risk or opportunity could have on a company and its shareholders, typically in financial terms, and therefore whether they should include it in corporate reports. For example, the cost of switching suppliers post-Brexit could be large and may affect your profits and shareholders’ decisions. But the cost of choosing one item of stationery over another is small and therefore immaterial. Insufficient data can undoubtedly lead to an inaccurate picture of ESG impacts and perceptions of greenwashing. Determining non-financial materiality is littered with challenges. “It tends to take three years…