Responsibility · Impact and materiality · Component
Impact register
Every identified effect of the organisation’s activities on people and the environment, with who bears it and how severe it is.
The deliverable
What it is
The impact register is the raw list that the materiality assessment later filters. It records effects, positive and negative, actual and potential, without yet deciding which of them matter most.
It is built from activities across the value chain. Starting from a generic list of sustainability topics finds what every organisation has; starting from what this organisation actually does finds what is particular to it.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
Affected parties
Who bears each effect — a named group of people, a community, or an ecosystem — and roughly how many.
3 attributes: Group affected · Estimated reach · Location
LearnNature of the effect
What the effect is, whether it is positive or negative, and whether it is already happening or only possible.
4 attributes: Description · Direction · Actual or potential · Causing activity
LearnSeverity
How serious the effect is, judged by its scale, how widely it spreads, and whether it can be put right afterwards.
4 attributes: Scale · Scope · Remediability · Confidence
Learn
Record positive effects as well as negative ones. A register of harms alone gives an incomplete picture, and invites an equally incomplete response.
The other components in impact and materiality
Double materiality assessment
The scoring of each issue in two directions — outward impact and inward financial effect — against thresholds set in advance.
LearnValue-chain boundary
How far upstream and downstream the impact assessment reaches, and which parts of the value chain were left out, with reasons.
Learn