Materiality, transition plans and beyond: how to break the silos for a stronger strategy

The questions being asked of sustainability leaders from regulators, investors, customers and employees are no longer just about ticking disclosure boxes; they’re about strategy, resilience, and long-term impact. And at the heart of those conversations sits a familiar tool: materiality assessments.

The challenge? Too often, materiality is treated like a standalone project, disconnected from Climate Transition Plans, Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and Risk Management Frameworks: different teams, different budgets, different timelines, yet are all aiming for similar levels of strategic clarity – albeit from differing (but aligned) perspectives. The result can often be duplication, wasted effort and missed opportunities. 

The businesses that will come out ahead in future economies are those that join the dots. The ones that integrate these tools, build on their overlaps and use them collectively to drive sharper strategy and real-world results. 

The good news? When you approach them this way, you quickly see they’re not competing initiatives – they’re different lenses on the same story.

Strategy power tools

A quick recap:

• Materiality assessments help a business figure out which environmental, social and governance issues matter most both to the company and its stakeholders. 
  • • Impact materiality refers to the impact of the business on wider stakeholders (people and the environment) and tends to align with the perspective of an EMS. 
    • On the flip side, financial materiality refers to the impact of external factors on the business, more aligned to a Climate Transition Plan perspective but much wider reaching than climate.
• Materiality assessments are wide in scope to cover a holistic view and should consider different stakeholder views and follow a rigorous methodology. This means looking at environmental, social and governance perspectives.
• Climate Transition Plans are action-led roadmaps that spell out how a business is going to align with a net-zero future, covering targets, risks, opportunities, stakeholder engagement and the financial implications of change.
• Environmental Management Systems ensure a business has the right data and policies in place to manage environmental impacts and risks. They cover everything from governance to action and should include scoring of issues in an impact and aspects register. 

Discover how a materiality assessment comes to life in our Lucky Saint Case Study, where we helped the low-alcohol beer brand align its approach with evolving global best practices.

On their own, each tool is powerful. But here’s the catch: they all rely on strong data, credible analysis and meaningful engagement to deliver useful outputs. When you run them in isolation, you risk:

• Overlapping and duplicative stakeholder engagement.
• Misaligned or conflicting priorities.
• Climate risks and opportunities sitting outside of broader business strategy.
• Competing for the same leadership attention, budget and time.

That’s not just inefficient, it’s adding unnecessary risk to the business.

Where things go wrong: overlaps and duplication

If you’ve ever delivered one of these projects, you’ll know the pain points. Here’s where duplication creeps in most often:

• Stakeholder engagement: running separate surveys and interviews for each project risks annoying stakeholders and wastes resources. A combined approach captures broader materiality and climate/environmental insights in one go.
• Use of existing work: many companies already have rich data in Environmental Management Systems, B Corp assessments, supplier audits or ISO frameworks, but these risk being tapped twice, in isolation. A single, consolidated requirement of the business ensures existing work delivers more value.
• Risk Identification and Scenario Analysis: transition plans look at climate-specific risks, while materiality often maps out wider enterprise risks. Done separately, you end up with parallel registers or inconsistent definitions and understanding. Integrated, you align assumptions and give leadership one clear, consistent view of risks and future pathways.
• Data collection: energy use, emissions data, supplier questionnaires – these resources are gold dust. But collecting them twice creates inefficiency and risks inconsistencies. One data process, many outputs.
• Board and leadership time: leaders don’t want multiple separate sessions having seemingly similar conversations. Bringing findings together and building on each of them means presenting a more holistic view of the business, and demonstrates good use of budgets and resources, with the depth of thought and expert insight that comes with each of these tools.
• Reporting and disclosure alignment: Whether it’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) or Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to name a few, all processes feed into external reporting. Keeping them apart creates disjointed disclosures and higher costs. Integrating them means coherence and efficiency.

Making integration work in practice

So how do you actually bring these projects together? Here are some pragmatic steps:

Spot the overlaps early

Map out where there are overlaps with your current planned work and use this to your advantage. This could be previous work completed or ongoing work in separate teams. Build these touchpoints into your aligned project plans from day one to avoid working in silos.

Consolidate requests of the business

Be respectful of colleagues’ time. Work with finance, risk, operations and strategy through streamlined, joined-up requests, instead of knocking on their doors twice.

Align timelines

Run the projects side by side so outputs reinforce each other, and executives see a single, coherent picture. If you can’t do this for whatever reason, make sure to demonstrate how you have built on work already completed.

Frame outputs for impact

Package findings in a way that shows how they each feed strategy, performance and resilience in different ways, resulting in a robust strategic picture, not just satisfying reporting obligations.

Conclusion: many tools, one strategy

For Heads of Sustainability, the challenge isn’t just delivering these projects, it’s persuading leaders that they’re stronger when done together. The real opportunity lies in treating these tools as a means to create a stronger overall picture.

The businesses that will thrive in the transition to a net-zero economy won’t be the ones ticking boxes in silos. They’ll be the ones that connect the dots, cut out duplication and use these tools together to drive smarter strategy and sharper impact.

Integration isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about unlocking a more compelling, business-led story, one that makes sense to your stakeholders, your leadership team, and ultimately, your customers.

Upcoming Webinar: Making The Most Of Materiality: Turning Your Materiality Assessment Into A Strategic Advantage

Join us on Monday 6th October, where we will be deep-diving into Materiality Assessments. We’ll explore how this powerful tool can be used to build strategic advantage, common challenges companies face and practical ways to overcome them.