Board level
Stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment
Materiality determines what goes in your report and what you are held to. Done properly it narrows the work; done as a formality it produces a matrix nobody uses and a set of topics that do not match the business.
Two different meanings of the word
Under the HKEX ESG Reporting Code, materiality is one of the reporting principles governing what you disclose. Under GRI, the focus is on your most significant impacts on people and the environment. Under IFRS S1 and S2, the lens is financial: information that could reasonably be expected to affect an investor's decisions. These are not the same test, and a company reporting against more than one framework needs to be clear about which it is applying where.
We set the methodology explicitly at the start, so the assessment stands up when someone asks why a topic was included or excluded — and so it can be reused rather than rebuilt next year.
Engagement that produces usable input
- Stakeholder mapping and prioritisation across investors, customers, employees, suppliers, regulators and community
- Bilingual surveys designed for a decent response rate rather than for length
- Interviews and focus groups with the stakeholder groups where written surveys underperform
- Board and senior management input, which is frequently the most informative and most often skipped
- Peer, sector and regulatory scanning to catch topics stakeholders have not yet raised
- Prioritisation workshop to reach a defensible topic list, not just a plotted chart
- Full documentation of process and participation for disclosure
Refresh, not repeat
A full assessment every year is unnecessary and tends to produce noise. We normally recommend a substantive exercise every two to three years, with a lighter annual review covering regulatory changes, new stakeholder concerns and business changes. That is both cheaper and more credible.
What the engagement includes
- Methodology design and framework selection
- Stakeholder mapping and engagement plan
- Bilingual survey design, distribution and analysis
- Interviews and focus groups
- Peer, sector and regulatory benchmarking
- Prioritisation workshop with management
- Materiality matrix and prioritised topic list
- Process documentation and disclosure text
Who this is for
Issuers whose material topics have not been revisited in several years; companies reporting against both HKEX and GRI; groups after a merger, disposal or strategy change; first-time reporters establishing a topic list.
Request a quotationCommon questions
How many stakeholders should we survey?
Enough for the result to be credible for each group that matters, which usually means designing for coverage rather than volume. Two hundred responses skewed entirely toward one department is weaker than sixty well distributed.
Do we need double materiality?
Only if a framework or a stakeholder requires it — European regulation or a European customer, for example. For most Hong Kong issuers, a clearly documented single approach is sufficient, provided you are explicit about which one you used.
Related services
Sustainability Reporting & Disclosure
Prepare sustainability disclosures that comply with the latest regulatory and investor expectations, including HKEX Appendix C2 and GRI.
Read moreESG Strategy & Target Setting
Translate sustainability ambitions into measurable business strategies and performance targets.
Read moreBoard Advisory & Corporate Governance
Empower boards and senior management to fulfil evolving ESG and climate governance responsibilities while strengthening long-term oversight.
Read moreReady to scope this?
Tell us your listing status and reporting year end. We come back with a defined scope, a fee and a realistic timeline — not a brochure.