Planning: To ensure a successful process, the materiality assessment should kick off early in the year, ideally six to nine months before the end of the financial year.
Strategic relevance: Sustainability reporting should be made a strategically relevant process. It should have the backing and support of the board of directors and executive management. At least one member of the board of directors and one member of the executive management should be part of the sustainability steering committee.
People: Tasks must be assigned to a focused and dedicated group of people who report directly to the top level.
Laws and requirements: All of the applicable laws and requirements must be known. They are constantly changing and must therefore be monitored on an ongoing basis.
Interconnection: Non-financial and financial reporting are interconnected. Negative impacts and risks have the potential to be relevant to both sustainability reporting and risk reporting.