An impact materiality and prioritisation process that supports more than just disclosure

A strong understanding of impact materiality should underpin your company's approach to sustainability and support and inform your business strategy. Too often though, impact materiality is focused only on disclosure and remains anchored in stakeholder surveys.

But with the same amount of effort, you can gain much more strategic insight. That's why we partnered with companies around the world to develop, pilot, and refine our Prioritisation Radar approach.

Our Radar Prioritisation Process helps you to rigorously and systematically identify, rank, and prioritise sustainability impacts in your direct operations and in your value chain to understand which issues are material from a company impacts perspective (and warrant disclosure) as well as which issues are strategically relevant (and require strategic attention). These findings can also be leveraged to better inform your financial materiality assessment processes.

Our Radar Prioritisation Process has been used by more than a hundred companies in a range of sectors and aligns with GRI's expectations around impact-based materiality, including the need to address human right impacts; the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CRSD) expectations for impact materiality as part of a double-materiality approach; and supports a more robust understanding of financial materiality, including meeting the expectations of the IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information.

Our Impact Materiality Radar process offer a robust, structured impact assessment process by:

1Systematically exploring a comprehensive set of sustainability / ESG issues

2Assessing and ranking their actual and potential direct and value chain impacts (impact materiality)

3Identifying the best opportunities to contribute to positive systems-level change

4Assessing the business relevance of ESG issues to identify sustainability -related financial and strategic risks and opportunities

Approaching sustainability for a conglomerate like IBL Ltd has been a challenge, as we have numerous companies and business units with varying levels of maturity. Complex tools for materiality assessments were getting us nowhere and we were losing engagement. Through our partnership with the Embedding Project, we started a journey where the building of a radar allowed re-engagement through a simple, yet powerful approach. It is thrilling to be on this journey.

Christine Marot Headshot

Christine Marot

Group Head of Technology & Sustainability, IBL Ltd

We had an exceptional experience collaborating with the Embedding Project team. They developed a bespoke climate action training video tailored specifically for our law firm. The team's expertise and dedication were evident throughout the process, resulting in a high-quality, engaging, and informative video that exceeded our expectations. We highly recommend their services to any organization looking to enhance their sustainability initiatives.

Sally Crane

Sally Crane

Director of ESG and Sustainability, Fasken

Our Prioritisation Radar assessment process

The Impact Materiality Radar process can be completed as a facilitated process delivered by the Embedding Project team in close collaboration with your sustainability and strategy leads.

Or, your company can complete its own impact materiality assessment process, using the Radar tool and guidance, but implemented by your own in-house team.

A typical facilitated process unfolds as follows over the course of three months.

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Project planning and start-up

We work with your project team to structure and sequence your materiality assessment, identify workshop participants, and help to socialise the project within the organisation.

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Subject matter expert workshops

We facilitate structured focus groups of different internal subject matter experts to explore each issue in one of eight sustainability and strategy leads. (~1-2 hours each).

In the workshops, we examine operational impacts, value chain impacts, and your potential for broader systems influence and we also explore the strategic risks and opportunities these issues present for your business.

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Radar preparation, calibration, and socialisation

We document our assumptions and findings and prepare a preliminary Radar visual. We calibrate it through a series of conversations with your team. We then develop a findings presentation deck and provide support for socialisation of the findings more broadly with process participants and your executive team.

Optional add-ons:

  • Additional engagement with external stakeholders to help validate and nuance the internal findings.
  • Support for further strategic planning based on the Radar process findings.

Deliverables

Maturity Chart

Radar visualisations illustrating relative materiality and data confidence

Summary Report

Spreadsheets documenting the basis for ranking of each topic and sub-topic

Action Plan

A findings presentation for internal use to shareresults and to support business planning

Interested in learning more?

Contact Us