Example scenario — not a live project yet. An illustrative depiction of a typical implementation.
Starting point
Under the CSRD and the ESRS, a growing number of companies have to carry out a double materiality assessment: they evaluate both their effects on people and the environment (impact materiality) and the associated financial risks and opportunities (financial materiality) — across topics, sub-topics, and individual impacts, risks, and opportunities (IROs) — and have to document all of it in an audit-proof way.
Consultancies in this space face the task of mapping this assessment for several clients consistently, traceably, and along the ESRS structure — work that in practice often lives in workshops, spreadsheets, and text documents: hard to keep current, barely evidenced end to end, and laborious to bring into an audit-ready form. A tool that captures this methodology could turn that recurring work into a reusable product of its own.
Solution approach
Such an application would be designed as a multi-tenant platform that covers the double-materiality process end to end — from a long list of candidate topics, through the assessment of each IRO on both materiality axes, to a reasoned materiality decision. A guided workflow would lead through impact and financial assessment, so that every rating ends up fully derived and evidenced.
- Guided workflow along the ESRS topics, sub-topics, and individual IROs — from long list to materiality decision
- Two assessment axes side by side: impact materiality (severity, scope, irremediability, likelihood) and financial materiality, with configurable thresholds
- Stakeholder input as a structured survey instead of loose emails, with every view traceably attributed
- AI-assisted suggestions that would draw solely on the stored ESRS texts and the consultancy's methodology — always as a draft, never as an automatic decision
- Materiality matrix and ESRS topic overview from which the disclosure scope could be derived
- Role-based and multilingual, with a complete audit trail and two-factor authentication
A look inside the product
Mockup / illustrative depiction with invented demo data — not a live system and not a real product.
What the tool would deliver
Designed as a reusable product, such a tool could put the materiality assessment onto the same traceable process across all clients. Instead of scattered spreadsheets, a structured source of data would emerge, from which the materiality decision and its audit-ready derivation could be obtained at any time.
- Would provide every materiality decision derived and evidenced as a basis for ESRS reporting
- Could map impact and financial materiality consistently across all clients along the same methodology
- Would be designed as an audit-proof basis for the assurance of sustainability reporting
- Would turn recurring advisory work into a scalable product under an own brand
