Definitions of the materiality concept provided by the main standard setters
| Standard setter | Definition of materiality | Materiality perspective | Primary recipients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) | “Material topics are topics that represent the organisation’s most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people, including impacts on their human rights” (GRI, 2021, p. 26) | Impact materiality | All stakeholders |
| International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) | “An integrated report should disclose information about matters that substantively affect the organization’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long term” (IIRC, 2021, p. 29) | Financial materiality | Providers of financial capital |
| Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) | “Information is financially material if omitting, misstating, or obscuring it could reasonably be expected to influence investment or lending decisions that users make on the basis of their assessments of short-, medium-, and long-term financial performance and enterprise value” (SASB, 2017, p. 9) | Financial materiality | Investors or lenders |
| European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) | “Double materiality has Two dimensions: impact materiality and financial materiality . A sustainability matter meets the criterion of double materiality if it is material from the impact perspective or the financial perspective or both” (EFRAG, 2023, p. 7) | Double materiality | All stakeholders |
| International Sustainability Standard Board (ISSB) | “Sustainability-related financial information is material if omitting, misstating or obscuring that information could reasonably be expected to influence decisions that the primary users of general purpose financial reporting make on the basis of that reporting, which provides information about a specific reporting entity” (ISSB, 2023, p. 8) | Financial materiality | Investors and capital markets |
| Standard setter | Definition of materiality | Materiality perspective | Primary recipients |
|---|---|---|---|
| Global Reporting Initiative ( | “Material topics are topics that represent the organisation’s most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people, including impacts on their human rights” ( | Impact materiality | All stakeholders |
| International Integrated Reporting Council ( | “An integrated report should disclose information about matters that substantively affect the organization’s ability to create value over the short, medium and long term” ( | Financial materiality | Providers of financial capital |
| Sustainability Accounting Standards Board ( | “Information is financially material if omitting, misstating, or obscuring it could reasonably be expected to influence investment or lending decisions that users make on the basis of their assessments of short-, medium-, and long-term financial performance and enterprise value” ( | Financial materiality | Investors or lenders |
| European Financial Reporting Advisory Group ( | “Double materiality has Two dimensions: impact materiality and financial materiality . A sustainability matter meets the criterion of double materiality if it is material from the impact perspective or the financial perspective or both” ( | Double materiality | All stakeholders |
| International Sustainability Standard Board ( | “Sustainability-related financial information is material if omitting, misstating or obscuring that information could reasonably be expected to influence decisions that the primary users of general purpose financial reporting make on the basis of that reporting, which provides information about a specific reporting entity” ( | Financial materiality | Investors and capital markets |
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