Double Materiality Assessment under the ESRS
/ Assess Both Perspectives. Prioritise What Matters. Report with Confidence.
Course Description
Double materiality brings together an organisation’s impacts on people and the environment with sustainability-related risks and opportunities that may affect the organisation financially. This live, instructor-led course provides a structured and practical introduction to double materiality under the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), guiding participants from understanding organisational context and identifying actual and potential impacts, risks and opportunities to assessing impact and financial materiality, consolidating the results and reporting the assessment process and its outcomes. Through guided discussions, practical insights and organisational case studies, participants examine the role of value chain information, due diligence, stakeholder engagement, governance and documentation in a credible materiality assessment process.
English or Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian
Live Online
Face-to-Face
Tailored
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
reflect on materiality trends in the sustainability reporting landscape;
define the concept of double materiality in the context of reporting with the ESRS;
explain the practical steps of double materiality assessment under the ESRS;
reflect on the importance of collecting value chain information and engaging with stakeholders for the materiality assessment; and
apply the knowledge gained by analysing practical insights and case studies.
Course
Structure
The workshop combines licensed GRI content with presentations, guided discussions, reflection activities, knowledge checks, practical exercises and organisational case studies, helping participants connect impact and financial materiality with a structured ESRS assessment and reporting process.
Introduction
- Welcome, orientation and learning objectives
- The role of double materiality in ESRS reporting
- Key terminology, resources and the relationship between impacts, risks and opportunities
Part 1:
The Concept of Materiality — Definitions, Importance and Trends
- Materiality in financial and sustainability reporting
- Impact materiality, financial materiality and double materiality
- The relationship between organisational impacts and sustainability-related risks and opportunities
- Materiality assessment as a continuous and iterative process
- Key trends, including future-oriented reporting, value chain transparency, stakeholder engagement and regulatory developments
Part 2:
Double Materiality in the ESRS
- Impact and financial materiality as distinct but interconnected perspectives
- When a sustainability matter is material from one or both perspectives
- Actual and potential impacts, risks and opportunities across relevant time horizons
- The role of due diligence, stakeholder engagement and value chain information
- Topical and entity-specific sustainability matters
- Reporting the materiality assessment process and its outcomes
Part 3:
The ABCs of Materiality Assessment under the ESRS
Important Clarification
The four-step A–D process used in the course is an illustrative approach based on EFRAG’s implementation guidance. The ESRS require organisations to conduct and report on a double materiality assessment, but do not prescribe one mandatory methodology or sequence of steps. Organisations may adapt existing due diligence, impact-assessment, risk-management and reporting processes to their circumstances.
Step A: Understand the Organisational Context
- Activities, products, services, strategy and financial information
- Business relationships and the upstream and downstream value chain
- Geographic, sector-specific, regulatory and sustainability context
- Existing due diligence, risk-management and reporting processes
- Key affected stakeholders and relevant internal and external information sources
Step B: Identify Actual and Potential Impacts, Risks and Opportunities
- Developing an initial list of actual and potential IROs
- Reviewing the sustainability matters listed in ESRS 1 and identifying entity-specific matters
- Leveraging existing GRI, IFRS, due diligence and risk-management processes
- Considering IROs throughout the value chain
- Engaging affected stakeholders, users of sustainability information, experts and representatives of silent stakeholders
Step C: Assess and Determine Material Impacts, Risks and Opportunities
- Assessing actual negative impacts based on severity
- Assessing potential negative impacts based on severity and likelihood
- Recognising that severity takes precedence over likelihood for potential negative human rights impacts
- Assessing actual positive impacts based on scale and scope, and potential positive impacts based on scale, scope and likelihood
- Assessing financial risks and opportunities based on the potential magnitude and likelihood of financial effects
- Setting qualitative and quantitative thresholds across relevant time horizons
- Consolidating, validating and documenting the assessment results
The official course materials distinguish the criteria applied to actual and potential, positive and negative impacts, rather than applying the same criteria to every category.
Part 4:
Results and Reporting of the Materiality Assessment
- Producing the final list of material impacts, risks and opportunities
- Mapping material IROs to sustainability matters and determining the appropriate level of granularity
- Connecting material matters with relevant Disclosure Requirements and datapoints
- Reporting the process and outcomes under the principal ESRS 2 requirements:
- IRO-1 — Processes to identify and assess material impacts, risks and opportunities
- SBM-3 — Material impacts, risks and opportunities and their interaction with strategy and the business model
- IRO-2 — Disclosure Requirements covered by the sustainability statement
- Considering relevant governance information under GOV-2
- Reporting material value chain information, methodologies, assumptions and limitations
- Preparing entity-specific disclosures where necessary
- Maintaining traceability between the assessment, material matters and reported information
This section reflects Step D — Reporting in the illustrative EFRAG process.
Part 5:
Materiality in Action — Practical Tips
- Adapting existing assessment and reporting processes rather than starting from scratch
- Leveraging previous GRI assessments, enterprise-risk processes and IFRS-related work
- Establishing clear governance, responsibilities and senior-management involvement
- Combining internal and external evidence with meaningful stakeholder engagement
- Defining and documenting scoring criteria, thresholds and assumptions
- Using digital tools to support data management and assessment efficiency
- Maintaining evidence and audit trails to support external assurance
- Integrating materiality outcomes into strategy and decision-making
- Reviewing whether previous assessment results remain relevant for each reporting period
Supplementary Case Studies
- Organisational examples of double materiality assessments
- Different approaches to identifying, assessing and prioritising IROs
- Governance, stakeholder engagement, data and documentation challenges
- Integration of assessment results into strategy and reporting
- Practical lessons, implementation challenges and continuous improvement
Wrap-Up
- Summary of key concepts
- Final knowledge check
- Reflection, Q&A and next steps
Together, the course progresses from understanding materiality and its two perspectives to conducting a structured double materiality assessment, reporting its results and applying practical lessons from organisational experience.
Who
Should Attend
This course is particularly suitable for:
sustainability and ESG professionals preparing or supporting an ESRS materiality assessment;
reporting practitioners preparing a first ESRS report;
consultants and professional advisers supporting double materiality projects;
external assurance and internal audit professionals reviewing assessment processes and evidence;
finance, risk, legal, compliance, strategy and corporate-reporting professionals;
managers, project leads and analysts coordinating ESRS reporting readiness; and
supply chain and procurement professionals responding to ESRS-related value chain information requests.
The course is suitable both for participants new to ESRS reporting and for experienced professionals seeking a structured understanding of double materiality requirements and
Course
Information
Duration:
Two-day live workshop
Language:
English or
Bosnian / Croatian / Serbian
Delivery Options:
Scheduled Live Online, Face-to-Face at the University of Sarajevo, or tailored in-house delivery worldwide
Prerequisites:
No specific prior knowledge is required
Recommended Preparation:
Participants are encouraged to download and review the current ESRS before attending the course
Course Materials:
Applicable licensed course materials and a dedicated participant booklet
Certificate:
Digital GRI Certificate of Completion, available after completing the course and the required GRI feedback survey
️Approved CPD Hours:
5 CPD Hours
Professional Certification Pathway:
This course is one of six required courses within the GRI Certified ESRS Sustainability Professional pathway
Course Content Updates:
Course content is reviewed before each cohort to reflect key CSRD and ESRS regulatory and standard-setting developments
Group & In-House Options
10% discount for groups of five or more participants from the same institution
Custom pricing for larger groups, institutional programmes and donor-funded initiatives
Tailored in-house training is available worldwide and quoted separately based on group size, location and logistics
Meet the
ESRS Training Team
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