Double Materiality Examples

The following cases are original fictional teaching aids rather than assessments of actual businesses, industry findings or substitutes for undertaking-specific evidence.

They deliberately use narrative reasoning without invented emissions factors, financial forecasts, numerical thresholds or a mandatory survey score.

The IFRS Foundation’s materiality educational material likewise distinguishes illustrative hypothetical situations from the requirements themselves and does not add to or change those requirements IFRS Foundation, educational material introduction.

Read the assessment method for the overall process and use these cases to test whether your own explanation keeps the perspectives distinct.

A fictional booking provider replaces an assisted channel with an interface that some customers cannot use, and its assessment file documents a significant effect on the affected group.

For this teaching case, assume the reviewer has enough evidence to conclude impact materiality but has not identified a financially material risk or opportunity.

The impact remains relevant rather than disappearing because the affected customers represent a small share of sales.

Meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups is part of the UN Guiding Principles’ assessment approach, which concerns risks to rights-holders rather than only risks to the company UN Guiding Principles 17–18 and commentary.

A fictional technology-services group relies on a leased technical site whose cooling resilience may be insufficient under conditions relevant to its planning assumptions.

Assume its evidence supports a material financial risk through possible service disruption, but does not establish a material environmental or social impact connected to its own activities.

The financial conclusion is therefore not conditional on inventing an impact conclusion simply to place the topic high on both axes.

UK SRS S1 separately considers sustainability-related risks and opportunities reasonably expected to affect prospects, illustrating why financial reporting can ask this question without adopting ESRS double materiality UK SRS S1, objective and scope.

A fictional equipment group plans a major operating-model change involving retraining, job changes and production handovers.

For the example, assume the assessment supports material impacts on affected workers and a separate material financial exposure from implementation and continuity risks.

The same project supplies evidence to both inquiries, but the reviewer explains the worker effects separately from the company’s financial effects.

GRI 2’s activity, worker and engagement disclosures provide useful context for understanding the organisation and its relationships, rather than making a workforce topic automatically material GRI 2, introduction and disclosures 2-6–2-8 and 2-29.

A fictional service business pilots an inclusive training programme while also investigating an unrelated concern about how customer information has been handled.

Its communications team proposes describing the programme as proof of the business’s overall positive social impact.

The reviewer separates the intended programme benefit from the information-handling concern and asks for evidence of each rather than calculating a net social score.

GRI 1 explains that its standards do not themselves set benchmarks for good or bad performance, so using a reporting framework does not validate the proposed broad performance claim GRI 1, section 1.1.

For the fictional operating-model case, a workforce topic label does not establish that every conceivable employment statistic explains the material matter.

The reviewer instead connects the supported effects and financial pathway to the relevant disclosures, their information-materiality assessment and the applicable reporting edition.

The booking-provider case might gain evidence of financial consequences later, while the continuity case might reveal an external impact that was not previously identified.

Neither development makes the earlier separation mistaken if the original record accurately stated its evidence and limits.

EFRAG IG 1 is non-authoritative guidance for the 2023 ESRS, while Regulation 2026/1563 applies the revised standards from financial years beginning 1 January 2027 with specified 2026 choices EFRAG IG 1, disclaimer Regulation 2026/1563, Articles 2–3.

A materiality matrix can summarise the conclusions, and assessment software can preserve records, but neither graphic nor product substitutes for the reasoned judgement behind each example.