Templates and records · Sustainability · Clause ESRS 1

ESRS double materiality assessment template

The process that decides which topics go into the report: how the company affects people and the environment, and how sustainability risks and opportunities affect the company.

In one sentence

The double materiality assessment identifies the company’s impacts on people and the environment and the financial risks and opportunities that sustainability creates for it, rates them against defined thresholds and decides which topics are material, because ESRS 1 bases the entire report on this assessment and ESRS 2 requires the process followed to be described.

Content reviewed on 17 October 2026

Where the standard requires it: Sustainability · Clause ESRS 1 Standards are cited by name: ESRS 1 (general requirements), E1 (climate change), S1 (own workforce), G1 (business conduct). Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 simplified them for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027; for 2026 companies may choose the previous version or the new one.
Type of information: Mandatory document Mandatory for companies subject to the CSRD (ESRS 1 and ESRS 2)
Who fills it in: Sustainability manager with finance and risk Validated by management and overseen by the board
When: Once per financial year It can be updated without redoing it in full if nothing significant has changed, provided this is justified
How long it is kept: At least while the report can be reviewed Neither the directive nor the ESRS set a period for working papers; it is wise to keep them with the management report for the year and those for the comparative year.

What the standard requires

What Sustainability demands and what it leaves to your judgement

Impact materiality looks outwards: actual or potential, positive or negative effects of the company and its value chain on people and the environment. Financial materiality looks inwards: risks and opportunities that affect, or could affect, the company’s position, performance or access to finance. A topic is material if it is material on either count.

The ESRS do not impose a scoring method, but they do require the process to be explained: how impacts, risks and opportunities were identified, which thresholds were applied and how affected stakeholders were taken into account. The 2026 simplification gave clearer criteria for this assessment.

The outcome decides which topical standards apply: a non-material topic is not reported, but the decision must be justifiable.

Read it in context: Materiality assessment and ESG strategy, in the Sustainability Academy

Structure

Fields the template should include

ESRS topic and sub-topic
Impact, risk or opportunity identified
Location: own operations or value chain, upstream or downstream
Impact rating: severity, scale, irremediability and likelihood
Financial rating: magnitude and likelihood of the effect
Threshold applied and result: material or not
Sources and stakeholders consulted
Date and approval

Example

Example: three topics for the food group (fictitious group)

Company, people and figures are fictitious: the example only shows what a properly completed record looks like.

Field	Content
Climate change	Impact: emissions from the fleet and industrial refrigeration · risk: carbon costs and droughts affecting crops · material on both counts
Water	Impact: consumption at two plants located in water-stressed areas · material on impact
Workers in the value chain	Risk of poor working conditions in harvesting at agricultural suppliers · material on impact
Biodiversity	No activities near protected areas · not material, with justification
Threshold	Material if the impact score exceeds 12 out of 20 or the estimated financial effect exceeds €5 M
Sources	Interviews with 14 suppliers, survey of 900 employees, official water stress map, corporate risk matrix
Approval	Management committee, 10 March 2026 · overseen by the audit committee

At the audit

Mistakes auditors commonly flag

A stakeholder opinion survey is presented as a double materiality assessment.
Only impact materiality, or only financial materiality, is assessed.
The thresholds, and the reasons a topic is left out, are not documented.
The value chain is missing from the assessment.
Sustainability risks are not cross-checked against the corporate risk matrix.

In Kimobox

How this record is kept in Kimobox

1The materiality assessment is documented as a versioned record.
2Stakeholder engagement and its outcomes are recorded and linked to the assessment.
3ESG risks are integrated into the same risk register as the quality system.
4The ESG objectives arising from the assessment are tracked on the dashboard.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask us before getting started

Is it the same as the GRI materiality matrix?

Not quite. The classic GRI matrix relied on impact materiality and stakeholder opinion; ESRS double materiality adds the financial dimension and requires the thresholds to be justified.

Does it have to be done every year?

Each report must rest on a current assessment. If nothing significant has changed, it can be reviewed and confirmed without starting from scratch, as long as that review is recorded.

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Sources

Where each figure comes from

References to the official text in force. If a standard is revised, this page is updated and the review date says so.

Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772, European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) EUR-Lex · 31 July 2023
Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1563 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2772 to simplify the sustainability reporting standards EUR-Lex · OJ of 21 September 2026; applicable to financial years from 1 January 2027
Directive (EU) 2022/2464 on corporate sustainability reporting (CSRD) EUR-Lex · 14 December 2022