According to EFRAG guidelines, companies are not strictly required to consult all stakeholders when assessing materiality. However, stakeholder engagement is strongly recommended as a best practice. Engaging stakeholders helps companies understand the significance of various environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues from multiple perspectives, which aids in identifying and prioritizing material matters. This can include input from employees, customers, suppliers, local communities, and investors.
Best Practice Recommendations
Engage Key Stakeholders: Companies are advised to engage with stakeholders through interviews, surveys, or roundtable discussions to gather insights on material impacts and opportunities. This helps ensure that the materiality assessment reflects a comprehensive view of the company's impacts and dependencies.
Use of Experts: If direct stakeholder engagement is not feasible, companies can consult internal or external experts who understand stakeholder concerns and the potential impacts on them.
Documenting the Process: It is important to document how stakeholder input was collected and considered in the materiality assessment, and to disclose the methods used for this engagement as part of the reporting process
Greenly approach about external stakeholders management on materiality assessment
Our philosophy aims at limiting the amount of efforts to collect information for materiality assessment.
That being said, the standard offer does not include direct external stakeholder engagement tools. Instead:
The double materiality assessment is conducted using internal stakeholders' inputs through forms available in the CSRD module.
If external stakeholder insights are needed (e.g., from supply chain, investors, NGOs), the customer is responsible for gathering this information independently and incorporating it into Greenly's forms.
It's worth noting that Greenly is considering future enhancements to their value chain engagement feature, which could potentially include more direct external stakeholder input.