From materiality analysis to a sustainability strategy and narrative

Conducting a materiality analysis gives you a clear view of which topics are strategically important for your company. But a list of ESG topics is not yet the same as a sustainability strategy. How do you translate your material topics into an ESG roadmap? And how do you develop a narrative that people will empathize with? At Pantarein, we help dozens of companies with those strategic steps.

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If your company falls under the CSRD, then the double materiality analysis is a necessary step towards a compliant report. But in addition, whether you are required to publish a CSRD report or not, your material topics are also your compass for the future. If you want a sustainability strategy – or, by extension, a business strategy – that prepares your company for the climate-neutral economy of the future, then the materiality analysis forms the foundation of that, too. After all, it provides indispensable information about your impacts on people and the environment, as well as the future consequences of climate change for your sector and company, for instance.

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December 10, 2024

Katelijne Norga

Sophie Maeseele

Double materiality

Step 1: determining strategic focus points

A good ESG or sustainability strategy is not the equivalent of a list of, say, 15 material themes. On the contrary: if you want to make your company sustainable in a straightforward way, you need focus. In other words, you need a clear set of strategic spearheads, with targets and KPIs. Determining your focus areas from the material topics is a strategic exercise in which it is best to involve the entire management. During a moderated workshop, using the materiality matrix as a starting point, you select three to five thematic focus points in the field of ESG in which your company will soon want to make the difference for stakeholders, employees, the planet, and wider society, and equally vis-à-vis the competition. Depending on your company’s activities, circular economy, healthy food, fair trade, climate-positive products or services could be strategic focus points, for example. It is essential that your company is prepared to pursue a certain level of ambition for these strategic focus points. In other words, clear and measurable targets need to be set for them.

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Step 2: setting targets

In the next step, you will work on setting targets for each of the focus points. Here, too, an expert facilitator comes in handy. We help you pinpoint your ambitions and focus: Where is the ambition level of your competitors, what are short- versus long-term goals, achievable and measurable targets, supporting and intermediate sub-targets, etc.? As climate is material for almost all companies, CO₂ reduction targets will, by definition, be contained in the core of your ESG roadmap. For example, the overarching target might be to reduce your scope 1 and 2 emissions by 40% by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Achieving those targets often requires sub-targets, along with corresponding KPIs, such as the CO₂emissions of your transport, the amount of green energy you use and/or generate yourself, the share of raw materials with a low carbon footprint, and so on. We also set targets for other material topics in a process of co-design. By combining all of the strategic focus areas, targets and KPIs, we draw up your ESG roadmap or sustainable way forward.

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Step 3: creating a communicative strategy

Your ESG roadmap acts as your management compass for your sustainable business transition. Yet that roadmap, crucial as it is, is not the end point of the guidance process at Pantarein. Together, we draw up your company’s sustainable storyline. This communicative translation of your ESG roadmap in words and images is the tool with which your sustainability strategy is communicated both inside and outside your company.

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It is best not to rush into this communicative translation overnight. You have to be careful how you communicate your sustainable message without succumbing to greenwashing. Europe is currently preparing new rules to this end via the Green Claims Directive, which will create a clear ramework to put an end to greenwashing. Helping companies with an engaging and informative sustainability narrative, truthful and substantiated, to the point, fresh, and without being misleading: this has been one of Pantarein’s USPs for years.

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Through internal activation, you avoid ESG remaining solely on the agenda of management, and ensure that all employees are engaged. In one of our forthcoming blog articles, we will tell you how to get started with internal activation.

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How does the sustainability strategy relate to your CSRD report?

We mainly covered the strategic spearheads and the ESG roadmap in this article. It is important to mention that, in addition to those strategic topics, there will also be material topics that are not part of your strategic roadmap. You will also have to take action on those. For instance, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) stipulate that you must have policies and action plans for each material topic. And the ESRSs also come with an extensive list of KPIs that you are obliged to monitor and report if they are material for your company. Numerous such ‘CSRD KPIs’ are less strategic in nature. Think here of the number of employees who have left the company or the amount of political contributions made. You need to track these KPIs annually, but they will require less resources and attention than your strategic targets and KPIs.

For CSRD-compliant companies, material topics are also the starting point for ESG reporting. To get yourself started, you first need to conduct a thorough gap analysis. This reveals which data points you already score well on, and where you still need to step up a gear. You can read all about how to perform such a gap analysis in this insight.

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Need help setting out your ESG roadmap, targets or storyline? Our experts are here for you: mail@pantarein.be.

From materiality analysis to a sustainability strategy and narrative

From materiality analysis to a sustainability strategy and narrative

Step 1: determining strategic focus points

Step 2: setting targets

Step 3: creating a communicative strategy

How does the sustainability strategy relate to your CSRD report?

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From materiality analysis to a sustainability strategy and narrative

From materiality analysis to a sustainability strategy and narrative

Step 1: determining strategic focus points

Step 2: setting targets

Step 3: creating a communicative strategy

How does the sustainability strategy relate to your CSRD report?

Share this article

Most recent

Meet our Team Leads: Jonas Kiesekoms, Head of Communication

Tagging according to the ESRS XBRL Taxonomy: the next step in ESG reporting

Gradually more clarity on the mandatory audit of sustainability reports