Supermarkets are raising their sustainability expectations and suppliers are expected to keep pace. The challenge isn’t willingness; it’s knowing where to focus. A materiality assessment gives you that clarity.
What a Materiality Assessment Does
It helps you identify the ESG issues that matter most to your business and stakeholders, including:
- Your biggest sustainability impacts
- Key risks and opportunities
- What customers, retailers and regulators prioritise
- Where to focus limited time and resources
- How to build a credible foundation for future reporting
Materiality has been widely used in sustainability strategy development and reporting frameworks such as GRI Standards. It is now increasingly being mandated within sustainability and financial reporting regulations such as the UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (SRS) and The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
Why It Matters for Suppliers
Supermarkets are aligning their reporting with new standards and passing expectations up the supply chain. Completing a materiality assessment now helps you:
- Prioritise the issues that genuinely matter
- Align with retailer expectations
- Reduce future reporting burden
- Strengthen credibility with customers and partners
- A Practical First Step
We’ve created a free, easy‑to‑use activity designed specifically for food and drink suppliers. It helps you, identify your most material ESG issues, understand what supermarkets are likely to scrutinise, and build internal alignment and a clear starting point for future sustainability work.
Download the free activity here
Support Beyond the Activity
If you need help turning your assessment into a structured plan, we offer two tailored support packages:
Material issues and strategic insights
This service is designed specifically for food manufacturers with limited sustainability expertise who need to establish credible foundations. If you need to respond to customer requirements, future legislative requirements, or are looking to take the first step toward reducing your impact, we can help you cut through the complexity by giving you the insight you need to get started without overwhelming you or your team.
Deliverables:
- Initial sustainability assessment and strategic insights
- Materiality assessment
- Workshop summary report with sustainability roadmap with 12-month priorities
- 2 follow-up check-in calls
Full sustainability strategy package
This service is designed for large food manufacturers looking to establish formal, board/Exec-level governance and a comprehensive, credible sustainability strategy that drives competitive advantage. If you recognise sustainability is important for your business success and want to integrate it properly, we can help you to position sustainability as a strategic business function which proactively manages your impacts, risks and opportunities and customer and regulatory requirements, supporting your future growth.
Includes:
As per service one plus:
- Impact and Risk quantification in materiality assessment to align with relevant legislative requirements
- Strategy and commitment development
- ESG/Sustainability targets developed
- Full carbon footprint across all scopes including detailed Scope 3
- Net zero plan
- Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) target validation
- Stakeholder engagement workshops
- Sustainability report development
- Development and implementation of governance (Quarterly steering committee meetings)
- Define roles and responsibilities for sustainability team and pillar and target owners
- Implementation roadmap with KPIs
Prices, dependent on the level of support required: £6,995 – £72,500
If you’d like to sense‑check retailer requests or discuss your next steps, we’re always happy to talk.
Helping businesses reduce their environmental impact and act in a more sustainable way.