Double materiality & integration into risk management systems for global beverage company

Companies operating in Europe are increasingly exposed to regulations requiring them to increase transparency around sustainability, enabling investors and other stakeholders to make informed decisions. Responding to the regulation and stakeholder demands remains a complicated exercise.

Headquartered in the EU with facilities worldwide, our client must comply with EU-wide regulations, such as the CSRD, which includes the responsibility to inform their stakeholders about material sustainability matters.

The beverage company reached out to Ramboll due to the need for a best-in-class CSRD implementation partner, helping them navigate the regulation while simultaneously providing hands-on strategic and technical support across the ten European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). Ramboll’s engineering platform was key to successful project execution.

The DMA process involved a series of workshops across the ESRS standards with senior management and business unit representatives, spanning climate, biodiversity, water, own workforce, workers in the value chain, etc. We leveraged Ramboll’s strong engineering platform to provide insights on value chain impacts, enabling detailed assessment of identified impacts, risks, and opportunities. The senior management workshops enabled the DMA to be based on recent initiatives and prioritised actions. Upon project completion, it was evident that the DMA output could be used by senior management to steer investments and mitigate the most severe impacts while leveraging on identified opportunities. We therefore recommended integrating the DMA process into existing risk management and strategy processes to have a uniform view of impacts, risks, and opportunities.

To leverage existing risk and strategy processes for the DMA, it is crucial to apply the same financial materiality thresholds, facilitating a meaningful comparison of risks and opportunities. Ramboll, in collaboration with client senior management, designed thresholds to be used for the financial materiality part of the DMA, engaging representatives from risk management, finance, accounting, internal controls, and sustainability. The product is a management tool where “sustainability” investment risk and opportunities can be compared 1:1 with classic business factors.