What are the material issues the company has identified?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report GEDI identified a range of material issues, such as editorial responsibility and content quality, user satisfaction, digital transformation, privacy and data protection, business model in the media sector. Among these, creating economic value for its stakeholders stands out as a key material issue for GEDI.

Stakeholder engagement in accordance with the GRI Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) defines the Principle of Stakeholder Inclusiveness when identifying material issues (or a company’s most important impacts) as follows:

“The reporting organization shall identify its stakeholders, and explain how it has responded to their reasonable expectations and interests.”

Stakeholders must be consulted in the process s of identifying a company’s most important impacts and their reasonable expectations and interests must be taken into account. This is an important cornerstone for CSR / sustainability reporting done responsibly.

Key stakeholder groups GEDI engages with:

Stakeholder Group	Method of engagement
Market and financial community	·      Participation in conferences ·      Periodic meetings and specific events ·      Distribution of documentation
Public	·      Customer contact and feedback ·      Customer satisfaction surveys ·      Specific events ·      Interviews, focus groups ·      Engagement through website, social media, mailing list, etc.
Suppliers and business partners	·      Meetings and specific events ·      Partnerships, etc.
Community	·      Organisation of events in the local community ·      Events and public debates, etc. ·      Social media
Opinion leaders	·      Social media, events, debates, etc.
Personnel	·      Distribution of internal documentation ·      Company Intranet ·      Training ·      Themed discussion with management, etc.
Advertisers, business clients	·      Contact and feedback with different client categories
Institutions and regulatory bodies	·      Conferences, participation in meetings and consultations, etc.

How stakeholder engagement was made to identify material issues

To identify and prioritise material topics GEDI engaged with employee stakeholders through a survey and with the Group’s management through workshops.

What actions were taken by GEDI to create economic value for its stakeholders?

In its 2021 Sustainability Report GEDI reports that it took the following actions for creating economic value for its stakeholders:

• Creating economic value for employees
• In 2021, GEDI paid € 191.8 million for employee wages and salaries.

• Creating economic value for lenders
• In 2021, GEDI paid € 7.3 million to lenders.

• Creating economic value for the public administration
• In 2021, GEDI paid € 4.8 million in taxes.

Which GRI Standards and corresponding Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been addressed?

The GRI Standard addressed in this case is: Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed

Disclosure 201-1 Direct economic value generated and distributed corresponds to:

• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• Targets: 8.1, 8.2
• Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
• Targets: 9.1, 9.4, 9.5

 

78% of the world’s 250 largest companies report in accordance with the GRI Standards

SustainCase was primarily created to demonstrate, through case studies, the importance of dealing with a company’s most important impacts in a structured way, with use of the GRI Standards. To show how today’s best-run companies are achieving economic, social and environmental success – and how you can too.

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References:

This case study is based on published information by GEDI, located at the link below. For the sake of readability, we did not use brackets or ellipses. However, we made sure that the extra or missing words did not change the report’s meaning. If you would like to quote these written sources from the original please revert to the following link:

https://www.gedi.it/en/responsibility/sustainability-report

Note to GEDI: With each case study we send out an email requesting a comment on this case study. If you have not received such an email please contact us.