What Can Evaluators Learn from ESG Materiality Assessment? by Kimberly Bowman

Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.

Hello aea365 readers! I’m Kimberly Bowman, writing from Burlington, Canada. I am a long-time internal evaluator and applied researcher and work as Director of Planning Learning & Evaluation at World Education Services. In this post, I’ll be sharing  ideas and insights generated through my personal research as a Master of Environment and Business (MEB) student, where I’ve been learning about sustainability reporting practices.

What is this?

Evaluators bring deep interest and expertise in interest-holder engagement and research methods. So, as an evaluator-and-grad-student, you can imagine my curiosity when I encountered “materiality analysis” for the first time. Materiality analysis is a process to identify, assess and prioritize an organization’s actual and potential sustainability impacts. It has been part of international standards like the Global Reporting Initiative since 2006, which are used by more than 75% of the world’s largest firms.  My research included a literature review, expert interviews and an analysis of 20 Canadian firms’ public reports.  Here are some

Lessons Learned

• Large firms list many interest-holder groups – consistently including customers, employees, shareholders/investors, local communities, suppliers, NGOs, industry and government.
• Like evaluation, materiality analysis is often linked to strategy; I found large firms did an analysis or ‘refresh’ annually or every 2 years. 
• There are many, many sources of data or engagement practices (surveys, focus groups, administrative data, meeting minutes, media analysis…sound familiar!?) but relatively little transparency in analytical approaches used.
• Materiality matrices (see photo) are a great visual tool for communicating what topics or themes matter.

Hot Tips

• Materiality analysis is sometimes criticized for its tendency to flatten or homogenize interest-holders views. As evaluators, consider where you might find use in materiality analysis methods – but keep a critical eye for who’s perspectives are prioritized and how!
• Consider scanning standardized issue or indicator lists (see Rad Resources) – they might be an untapped resource if you’re supporting a client working in a related sector.

Rad Resource

• The GRI3: Material Topics 2021 guide provides step-by-step guidance and a good overview of their method.
• Sector standards come with prioritized topics, indicators and measurement guidance.  Check out the GRI Sector Standards or the SASB Standards for 77 different industries.

Sustainability measurement and reporting has made rapid progress in the last two decades and continues to evolve. Its origins and practices differ from evaluation – but I think there are transferable tools and insights for evaluators and the teams, programs and communities they support.  Happy reading!

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.