APPROACHES TO THE ASSESSMENT OF MATERIALITY IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT REPORTING ACCORDING TO INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN STANDARDS
Abstract
Climate change, pollution of the natural environment, loss of biodiversity, deterioration of the living conditions of the local population, growth of social inequality and other consequences of ill-considered economic practices lead to increased demands of stakeholders for the accountability of enterprises in matters of sustainable development. Today, enterprises have the opportunity to use various guidelines for the preparation of such reports, a special place among which is the standards implemented in recent years by international initiatives and authorized bodies of integration associations of countries. However, each such standard has its own approach to materiality assessment, the results of which determine the list of topics and issues of sustainable development that should be disclosed in the report. The article is devoted to the study of approaches to materiality assessment, presented in international and European reporting standards on sustainable development, and to the definition of their features. Today, the most widely used standards for reporting on sustainable development in the world are the GRI Standards, but in the near future the standards of IFRS S1 "General requirements for the disclosure of financial information related to sustainable development" and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) will have wide global coverage, according to which companies will report for the first time in 2025. The article examines the sequence and content of stages, criteria and methods of materiality assessment in accordance with international standards GRI 3 and IFRS S1 and European ESRS standards. Three approaches to the assessment of materiality were distinguished, which are based on different concepts: materiality of influence, financial materiality and double materiality. The features of these approaches are defined, which it is advisable for the enterprise to consider when choosing a standard for the formation and disclosure of relevant information on sustainable development issues in accordance with the information needs of stakeholders. Prospects for further research are the development of accounting principles for the formation of reporting on the sustainable development of the enterprise.
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