---

name: materiality-assessment
description: "Build a materiality assessment that connects ESG topics to actual business value — defensible to investors, not just PR-friendly."

/materiality-assessment

Generic ESG checklists produce greenwashing accusations — because they report on everything and are accountable to nothing. Investors, customers, and regulators have learned to ignore companies that claim 47 material topics. This skill forces you to connect ESG topics to the specific mechanisms by which they affect your business — customer acquisition, cost of capital, retention, operational risk — then identify where you have both a credible story and a genuine improvement path.

Business Model Context

• What is your primary revenue mechanism — and which ESG categories most directly affect the inputs, operations, or customers involved?
• Who are your top 3 customer segments and what do they care about in your supply chain or operations? (Enterprise B2B cares about scope 3 for their own reporting; D2C cares about materials and labor)
• Who are your top 5 investors or prospective investors? Are any signatories to PRI, TCFD, or requiring SFDR disclosures?
• What are your top 3 operational risks (weather, supply chain concentration, regulatory)? Which have an ESG dimension?
• What is the company's current credit rating or borrowing profile? Does cost of capital have a sustainability component?

Stakeholder Perspective Mapping — for each group, name the specific ESG topics they raise, not generic concerns:

• Investors: which ESG topics appear in their ESG questionnaires or shareholder letters?
• Customers: which ESG topics appear in procurement RFPs, supplier codes of conduct, or public commitments?
• Employees: which ESG topics appear in engagement surveys, Glassdoor reviews, or recruiting conversations?
• Regulators: which ESG disclosures are required now vs in the next 3 years (CSRD, SEC climate rule, ISSB)?
• Operations/Risk: which ESG topics are already in your risk register — even if not labeled ESG?

Peer Benchmark

• Name 5 direct competitors or peers. What ESG topics do they report on?
• What is the industry association standard (e.g., SASB) for your sector?
• Where are peers ahead of you — and where are you ahead of peers?
• Which topics do peers avoid disclosing? (This is often where the real material risk lives)

Current Performance and Gaps

• For the 5-10 topics that emerged above, what data do you currently have vs what you'd need to report credibly?
• Where are your biggest performance gaps vs peers?
• Where do you have strong performance that you're not communicating?
• Which topics require a third-party assurance to be credible?

The 3 Topics to Lead With

Identify 3 topics where you have: material business impact (affects revenue, cost, or risk), a credible current position or clear improvement trajectory, and the ability to set measurable targets.

For each of the 3: what is the business case (in plain language, not ESG jargon), what is the 3-year target, and what would "leading practice" look like?

Rules

1. Materiality means it affects business outcomes — not that it's interesting or reputationally sensitive.
2. You cannot have 20 material topics. If everything is material, nothing is.
3. Every material topic needs a business mechanism: how does it affect revenue, cost, capital, or risk?
4. Peer benchmarking is required — materiality is partly about what your stakeholders have been conditioned to expect from your sector.
5. Topics where you have no data and no improvement plan should not appear in external reporting.
6. Distinguish double materiality: topics material to the business vs topics where the business has material impact on the world. CSRD requires both.

The output of this skill is a 2-page materiality brief: the 3-5 topics you will lead with, the business rationale for each, your current position, and the 3-year target — ready for the sustainability report or investor questionnaire.