Enriching our reporting process with double materiality

We have strengthened our corporate reporting process by introducing a double materiality approach to our most recent materiality review and enriched the results.

Background

The King Committee on Corporate Governance, established in 1992, plays a leading and global role in thought leadership by promoting and advancing the standards of corporate governance. The Committee has advocated for a thorough, robust materiality approach to reporting from inception.

Materiality plays a crucial role in determining the matters to be included in an integrated or sustainability report. In terms of Principle 5 of the King IV Report[1]: "The governing body should ensure that reports issued by the organisation enable stakeholders to make informed assessments of the organisation's performance, and its short, medium and long-term prospects."

Why we use the double materiality approach in our reporting

Materiality plays a crucial role in determining the content that needs to be included in our reporting suite and ensuring that reports are concise, informative and useful to our different stakeholders.

The double materiality process, which ran from May to July 2022, identified and assessed matters that influence enterprise value as well as Discovery's impact on the economy, environment and society at large. By applying this approach, the sustainability team was able to interrogate the material matters identified against our integrated sustainability framework. We are confident that our integrated sustainability framework captures the resulting material themes and sustainability priorities that are needed to address business concerns.

In addition, we sought input from some of our key external stakeholders on our material themes identified and sought their input to prioritise these through an online survey. This provided good insight and nuance to the themes which will be further explored in our reporting suite later this year. Finally, the double materiality process will strengthen alignment and disclosures across our reporting suite.

The following themes came through strongly:

  • Amplify our social impact
  • Strengthen our environmental stewardship
  • Empower our people
  • Ensure ethical governance and leadership

Details of the results of our materiality review and process will be shared in our 2022 reporting suite.

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