Using materiality analysis to reduce information asymmetry and improve sustainability reporting

Materiality analysis in sustainability reporting requires companies to reveal a measure of how they respond to what stakeholders consider relevant. In so doing, companies reduce the information asymmetry between them and stakeholders about the organization’s sustainability performance. However, a systematic approach to deal with subjectivity of judgments and to ensure completeness in covering all material aspects is required. This study proposes a gap analysis to capture and compare key stakeholders and manager’s view-points regarding materiality of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability aspects. The materiality assessment is performed in terms of stakeholder expectations and significance of company's impacts. An illustrative application shows how companies can use the analysis to identify that critical information to include in their sustainability reports in order to improve accountability and being more inclusive of stakeholders’ needs.