Double materiality -from theory to practice, an examination of its early implementation

The term "Double Materiality" (DM) was first used by the European Commission (EC) in the 2019 "Guidelines on Non-Financial Reporting: Supplement on Reporting Climate-Related Information" (2019/C 209/01). As a development of corporate reporting, it necessitates sharing information on i) how a company's operations affect society and the environment, and ii) how climate-related events affect the company's performance. We look into whether, where, and how businesses used the concept of double materiality in their 2020 corporate reports. To achieve this, we gathered information on a population of 1018 companies, we then traced mentions of Double materiality and examined their choices of reporting frameworks / standards that support their sustainability communication. Next, we investigate how rating agencies evaluate the financial health and sustainability of the companies. We examined possible connections between the disclosure policies of the companies and this external evaluation. Our findings demonstrate that the double materiality concept was still in its infancy in 2020. Similar to double materiality, non-financial reporting frameworks were also poorly addressed by the reporters, yet through significance testing, our results reveal a positive association between adopting these frameworks (by the reporter's/companies) and the reliability of the performance assessment conducted by external assessing entities (sustainability rating agencies).