Dutch family company Swiss Sense, with more than 125 shops and an online presence in five European countries, has taken an important step in making its operations more sustainable. Through a dual materiality analysis (DMA), the company mapped its strategic sustainability themes - a crucial preparation for future reporting obligations under European CSRD legislation.
According to Swiss Sense's Ramon van Herwijnen, there was initially insufficient in-house expertise to tackle the complexity of a DMA independently. 'We knew we needed to take steps, but did not have a clear starting point,' he says. The help of consultancy firm Intire changed this. Working with auditors from Quantifier, a rough list of 89 sustainability topics was reduced to eight material topics, based on both internal and external stakeholder input.
© Swiss Sense
Ramon van Herwijnen of Swiss Sense.
The stakeholder analysis played a central role in the process. Internal departments and external parties, including customers and suppliers, were involved in prioritising themes via targeted surveys. 'This allowed us to specifically determine what is really relevant for Swiss Sense,' says Van Herwijnen.
The choice of eight material themes, five mandatory and three voluntary, was made deliberately to start pragmatically. Each topic was assigned a responsible person within the company and, with Intire's help, a suitable software tool was implemented to streamline data collection and reporting.
The biggest gain, says Van Herwijnen, is the increased knowledge and awareness within the organisation: 'The broad involvement of departments has created a greater understanding about sustainability and what CSRD means for our business.'
The next step is a gap analysis, which identifies and completes missing data points. Van Herwijnen stresses the importance of external expertise: 'Don't think you can do this yourself without experience. CSRD affects the whole organisation and requires a structured approach.'
Source: Sustainable Business