Clarifying what actually matters
A lot of companies have completed double materiality assessments in recent years. Most were painful, expensive, and delivered questionable value.
The main reason is straightforward: double materiality was approached as a standalone ESG process. Topics were identified, scored and documented, but the outcome added volume rather than focus.
The result was a long list of “material” issues that the business did not always recognise and could not easily translate into strategic choices, board oversight or management action.
Understandable, but unfortunate — because the process itself is valuable. Double materiality connects two perspectives that leadership teams already deal with:
- Outside-in: how external factors affect the organisation’s financial position, risk profile and long-term value creation.
- Inside-out: how the organisation’s activities, products and value chain affect people, the environment and society — both positively and negatively.
It brings these perspectives together to help organisations distinguish what genuinely deserves strategic attention from what can be managed operationally.
In reality, most organisations already have much of the information they need. The task is not to collect more data, but to use inputs from existing processes — such as risk management, strategy development, client conversations, responsible sourcing, human rights due diligence and stakeholder engagement — and apply consistent judgement.
When used this way, double materiality provides strategic clarity. It sharpens priorities for strategy and governance, rather than producing another layer of ESG documentation.
