Double materiality assessment

Our process

In 2023 SoftwareOne conducted a double materiality assessment. This is a comprehensive process to evaluate and disclose ESG issues that are likely to materially affect our business (financial) and those areas that our business may materially affect (impact).

Using Datamaran, we produced a materiality assessment driven by both our inhouse ESG perspective, internal stakeholder priorities and AI based technology. This technology combines publicly available information including relevant ESG regulations and news, benchmarking SoftwareOne against our peers and surveys from our investors and employees, to create an accurate and reliable materiality assessment. Our double materiality assessment serves as a crucial foundation for shaping our ESG programme. It enables us to prioritise action that not only mitigates risks and complies with regulations but also aligns with our stakeholder’s expectations and contributes positively to our overall impact.

We align every step of our journey to the priorities and passions of our employees, clients, investors, and other stakeholders, not only to ensure that their needs are met, but also to drive further engagement in our ESG programme.

Our double materiality assessment process included the following steps:

• Defining the scope of the assessment, using in-house knowledge and expertise to identify key aspects of sustainability relevant to SoftwareOne.
• Aligning this scope to external frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Task Force for Climate Related Financial Disclosures and sub-topics relating to the upcoming EU directive Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
• Benchmarking our organisation against the technical materiality requirements of our peers through Datamaran’s benchmark analysis system.
• Defining our issue mapping used in previous materiality analyses and internal stakeholder surveys. These are the ESG topics included in the assessment based on those which are most material to SoftwareOne.
• Surveying additional key stakeholders, including Finance, People & Culture, Sales & Bid teams and the ESG Committee members to understand their perception of the impact of specific ESG issues. These surveys include questions based on both external (outside-in view) and internal (inside-out view) perspectives.
• Datamaran correlates this data to create a materiality matrix which maps the impact of each topic to SoftwareOne.