Knowing What Matters Is Not Enough. Resilience Requires Action.
In Week 35 we argued that resilient businesses build options.
In Week 36 we asked how businesses determine which options matter.
Enhanced materiality provides part of the answer by helping senior decision makers understand significant impacts, risks, opportunities and dependencies across the value chain.
But identifying what matters is not the destination.
It is the beginning.
A beautifully constructed materiality assessment sitting inside a sustainability report will not make an organisation more resilient.
A materiality matrix will not strengthen a supply chain.
A risk description will not retain critical employees.
An assessment of water dependency will not reduce water consumption.
Identifying a human rights impact will not correct it.
Recognising a market opportunity will not capture it.
Information creates value when it changes decisions and action.
That is the next step in building business resilience.
Materiality must lead somewhere
GRI 3 provides an important clue.
The Standard does not stop when an organisation identifies its material topics.
Disclosure 3 3 requires organisations to explain how each material topic is managed, including policies and commitments, actions taken, processes for tracking effectiveness, goals, targets and indicators, progress, lessons learned and the role of stakeholder engagement (Global Reporting Initiative, 2021).
That progression matters.
It takes us from:
What matters?
to
What are we doing about it?
The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct follows a similar logic.
Organisations are expected to identify and assess adverse impacts, take action to cease, prevent or mitigate them, track implementation and results, communicate what they are doing and provide or cooperate in remediation where appropriate (OECD, 2018).
Again, the emphasis is not simply on knowing.
It is on acting and learning.
Enhanced materiality should support decisions
FBRH trains professionals to undertake enhanced materiality.
The approach begins with the impact perspective of the GRI Standards and adds the financial perspective associated with double materiality.
It looks across the value chain to understand:
how the organisation affects the economy, environment and people
and
how sustainability related matters can create risks, opportunities and financial effects for the organisation.
EFRAG recognises these connections explicitly.
Its materiality guidance explains that material risks and opportunities can arise from impacts, dependencies and other factors, and that these matters can interact with strategy, investment and management decisions (EFRAG, 2024).
This is precisely why enhanced materiality has value beyond sustainability reporting.
It creates a structured information base for senior decision makers.
But the process becomes strategically useful only when management asks:
What decision should this information influence?
From material topic to management decision
Imagine that enhanced materiality identifies water scarcity as significant.
The reporting question might be:
What should we disclose about water?
The management questions are broader.
Where is the organisation most dependent on water?
Which facilities or suppliers are most exposed?
Could scarcity interrupt production?
What are the implications for communities?
Could costs rise?
Are alternative sources available?
Could processes use less water?
Should investment priorities change?
What indicators would provide early warning?
Who is responsible for responding?
The same principle applies to human capital.
Suppose the assessment identifies dependence on a small number of employees with critical expertise.
The reporting question may concern training, retention or employee turnover.
The resilience questions are different.
What happens if those people leave?
Who else understands the process?
Can knowledge be transferred?
Should succession plans be developed?
Does the organisation need additional capability?
Can technology reduce the dependency?
Again, information begins the conversation.
Decisions create the response.
Every material matter should create a management conversation
One way of ensuring that enhanced materiality contributes to resilience is to connect each significant matter with a clear management discussion.
For every important impact, risk, opportunity or dependency, senior decision makers should be able to ask:
What is happening?
↓
Why does it matter?
↓
Who or what is affected?
↓
What could this mean for the organisation and its stakeholders?
↓
What decision is required?
↓
Who owns that decision?
↓
What action will be taken?
↓
How will we know whether the action worked?
↓
What have we learned?
This converts materiality from a reporting process into a management process.
The value chain makes action more complicated
Not every material matter can be solved inside the organisation.
Many of the most important sustainability impacts and business dependencies exist within the value chain.
The OECD notes that significant environmental and social impacts often occur within supply and value chains rather than solely within an organisation’s own operations (OECD, 2026).
That means action may require collaboration.
A supplier may need support.
Procurement criteria may need changing.
Contracts may need reviewing.
Products may need redesigning.
New suppliers may need developing.
Customers may need engaging.
Industry bodies may need coordinating collective action.
Communities may need to be consulted.
Expert knowledge may be required.
The appropriate response depends on the nature of the matter and the organisation’s relationship with it.
This is another reason why simplistic sustainability checklists are inadequate.
Professional judgement matters.
Prioritisation must continue after materiality
A materiality assessment establishes priorities.
But management still needs to prioritise actions.
Consider an organisation that identifies ten significant sustainability matters.
It may identify dozens of possible responses.
Management cannot implement everything immediately.
The next question becomes:
Where can action create the greatest value?
That value can take several forms.
Reducing a significant negative impact.
Avoiding disruption.
Protecting people.
Improving operational efficiency.
Strengthening a supplier relationship.
Reducing cost.
Increasing access to markets.
Developing new products.
Building stakeholder trust.
Protecting natural resources on which the organisation depends.
Improving access to finance.
Creating greater strategic flexibility.
The objective is not to reduce every decision to a financial calculation.
Nor is it to ignore financial consequences.
Enhanced materiality allows decision makers to consider both.
That is why we describe the intended outcome as creating lasting value:
for the business
for stakeholders
and for the planet.
Actions need owners
There is another common problem.
Everyone agrees that a topic is important.
Nobody owns it.
If a material issue has no clear organisational responsibility, action can easily disappear between sustainability, finance, operations, procurement, human resources, risk and senior management.
Business resilience requires ownership.
Some matters may require board oversight.
Others belong with executive management.
Others may sit with procurement, operations, human resources or another business function.
Many will cross functional boundaries.
The important point is that material sustainability information should reach the people capable of acting on it.
A sustainability team cannot create organisational resilience alone.
Measure whether the action worked
Action without measurement creates another problem.
The organisation may be busy without knowing whether it is making progress.
GRI 3 specifically requires organisations to report how they track the effectiveness of actions taken to manage material topics, including goals, targets, indicators, progress and lessons learned (Global Reporting Initiative, 2021).
This creates a powerful management cycle:
identify
↓
prioritise
↓
decide
↓
act
↓
measure
↓
learn
↓
adapt
That final stage is particularly important for resilience.
Conditions change.
An action that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
A supplier improves.
A new regulation appears.
Technology changes.
A risk becomes less important.
Another becomes more significant.
A new opportunity emerges.
The organisation therefore needs to learn and adapt.
ISO 22316 describes organisational resilience as the ability to absorb and adapt in a changing environment while continuing to fulfil organisational objectives (ISO, 2017).
Adaptation requires feedback.
From reporting cycle to learning cycle
This changes how we can think about sustainability reporting.
The traditional model can appear linear:
collect data
↓
write report
↓
publish report
↓
repeat next year
A resilience based approach should be circular.
understand
↓
identify
↓
prioritise
↓
decide
↓
act
↓
measure
↓
learn
↓
understand again
The report is an important output.
But organisational learning may be an even more valuable one.
Capability determines whether this works
None of this happens automatically.
People need the capability to conduct a robust materiality assessment.
They need to understand the organisation and its value chain.
They need to identify impacts, risks, opportunities and dependencies.
They need to gather and evaluate evidence.
They need to understand stakeholder perspectives.
They need to know when expert input is required.
They need to assess significance and financial effects.
They need to apply professional judgement.
And critically, they need to communicate the results in a form that senior decision makers can use.
This is why FBRH training focuses on implementation rather than simply understanding disclosure requirements.
Through the GRI Reporting Programme: From Understanding to Implementation, participants learn how to apply the GRI Standards and undertake enhanced materiality across the value chain.
The objective is to develop internal capability.
Not simply to produce a report.
But to generate information that supports better decisions.
Training, action and assurance have different roles
There is also an important distinction between training and assurance.
Training develops capability.
It helps organisations develop the people, knowledge and processes required to generate and use sustainability information.
Management takes decisions and action.
The organisation remains responsible for determining its strategy, priorities and responses.
Independent assurance strengthens confidence.
Assurance evaluates sustainability information against suitable criteria and appropriate evidence.
These roles should remain distinct.
FBRH does not disguise organisation specific consulting as training.
Our training provides methods, frameworks, templates and exercises that organisations can apply using their own judgement.
Independent assurance is conducted separately and subject to appropriate ethical and independence requirements.
Why assurance becomes more relevant
As sustainability information moves closer to strategic decisions, its reliability becomes increasingly important.
Senior decision makers may be using that information to allocate resources.
Customers may use it to select suppliers.
Banks may consider it when evaluating clients.
Stakeholders may use it to assess organisational performance.
Boards may use it when overseeing risks and opportunities.
The question therefore becomes:
Can we rely on this information?
ISSA 5000 has been developed as a global baseline for sustainability assurance engagements.
The IAASB’s June 2026 guidance on materiality under ISSA 5000 specifically addresses the information needs of intended users, qualitative and quantitative sustainability information, double materiality where applicable and materiality throughout an assurance engagement in support of decision useful sustainability reporting (IAASB, 2026).
This reinforces the connection between materiality, information quality and decisions.
Assurance does not tell management what decision to make.
But it can strengthen confidence in the sustainability information on which decisions and disclosures may depend.
The pathway from information to resilience
The broader progression therefore becomes:
Understand the organisation and its value chain
↓
Build internal capability
↓
Conduct enhanced materiality
↓
Identify what matters
↓
Provide decision useful information
↓
Make informed decisions
↓
Take action
↓
Measure results
↓
Learn and adapt
↓
Strengthen confidence through assurance where appropriate
↓
Build greater resilience
This is not sustainability reporting sitting beside business strategy.
It is sustainability information contributing to better business strategy.
Knowing is not enough
Knowing that a supplier represents a critical dependency does not create an alternative.
Knowing that employees lack an important future skill does not develop that capability.
Knowing that water scarcity threatens operations does not reduce the exposure.
Knowing that a product creates an impact does not redesign the product.
Knowing that a market opportunity exists does not capture it.
Knowing matters.
But knowing is only valuable if it influences what comes next.
Information must support decisions.
Decisions must lead to action.
Action must be measured.
Results must create learning.
Learning must improve the next decision.
That is how sustainability information contributes to resilience.
And that is how enhanced materiality can move:
from disclosure
↓
to decisions
↓
to actions
↓
to value creation
For the business, stakeholders and the planet.
Simon Pitsillides
Simon Pitsillides is a board adviser specialising in sustainability governance, corporate reporting, strategy and stakeholder value creation. He supports boards and senior executives in strengthening governance, enhancing decision-making and integrating sustainability into long-term business strategy.
Simon is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM), a Fellow of the Institute of Sustainability and Environmental Professionals (FISEP), a Chartered Marketer, and holds an MBA in Marketing. He is also a GRI and ISEP Certified Trainer.
As Founder of FBRH Consultants and publisher of SustainCase, Simon combines strategic, commercial and governance expertise with extensive international experience in sustainability reporting, assurance readiness and value creation. He has worked with multinational organisations, financial institutions and public sector bodies across Europe, the Middle East and beyond.
Simon is recognised for helping boards move beyond compliance by using decision-useful sustainability information to strengthen strategy, manage risk, build stakeholder confidence and create long-term value for business, stakeholders and the planet.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-pitsillides
References
EFRAG (2024) EFRAG IG 1: Materiality Assessment Implementation Guidance. Brussels: European Financial Reporting Advisory Group.
Global Reporting Initiative (2021) GRI 3: Material Topics 2021. Amsterdam: Global Reporting Initiative.
International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (2026) ISSA 5000 Frequently Asked Questions: The Application of Materiality. New York: IAASB, 25 June.
International Organization for Standardization (2017) ISO 22316:2017 Security and resilience: Organizational resilience: Principles and attributes. Geneva: ISO.
OECD (2018) OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct. Paris: OECD Publishing.
OECD (2026) Due Diligence for Responsible Business Conduct. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development. Accessed 20 August 2026.