Suggestions
Donato Calace
VP of Innovation & Accounts at Datamaran, Member EFRAG Task Force on reporting of non-financial risks and opportunities
Donato Calace is a dedicated researcher, professional, and teacher specializing in corporate sustainability and ESG materiality. With a Ph.D. in Economics and Management of Natural Resources, Donato's research interests include sustainability, CSR, sustainable entrepreneurship, SRI, ESG analysis, and reporting. He actively engages with corporate leaders to leverage technology in identifying emerging material risks and opportunities through unstructured data analysis. Donato has contributed significantly to advancing sustainability practices and believes in making academia relevant in real-world applications.
Highlights
Very useful flowchart in the new European Commission Q&A document on #csrd clearly outlining how to determine whether an undertaking is subject to to the directive or not (which has been in the top 3 questions I’ve been getting on csrd over the past years)
Kudos to Tom Dodd and team for this key resource (available here https://lnkd.in/ekA4teng)
One thing is sure: starting from next year there will be A LOT MORE sustainability data available. Is that going to lead to better decision?
I look forward to asking this question to Alex Edmans who in his book “May contain lies” warns us of how data is often abused to make unsubstantiated claims leveraging our cognitive biases (an essential read in this age of misinformation). Alex will join our Datamaran academy expert panel in London on Sep 4 - the session is exclusive to members of the Datamaran community reach out to Lotti Hawkins if you’d like to find out more!
Very honoured to contribute to IEMA Sustainable Finance Insight Journal Volume 2: Disclosure, Transparency and Reporting in Sustainable Finance.
#CSRD is on everybody's agenda so when guest editor David Luck MIEMA, CEnv (thank you!) asked us to write about #doublemateriality we were very happy to provide Datamaran perspective. However, Marjella Lecourt-Alma and I didn't want to write yet another piece on how materiality is used for reporting.
As Simon Zadek and Mira Merme pointed out already 20+ years ago, #materiality in sustainability means more than just a threshold for reporting, it is actually a #corporategovernance framework. For example, #ESRS require disclosure of how frequently governance bodies, such as steering committees and Board committees, are informed about and consider the material sustainability matters and their impacts, risks, and opportunities (#IROs) in their decision-making.
Under #CSRD, making a materiality judgment is not simply about setting a threshold for reporting, it is an affirmation of accountability, involving the highest levels of governance in the organisation. Given the double perspective of materiality, for the first time, this is not simply about what can affect the value of the company, but also and more importantly about how the company affects and impacts the environment and society.
The expansion of materiality beyond the boundaries of reporting and into governance deserves more academic research. This is something that we explored together with Di Wang, Chris Chapman, and Stuart Cooper - check our paper Sustainability (ESG) Reporting: Field Evidence on Materiality here https://lnkd.in/ekyttcZf
The full issue of the IEMA Sustainable Finance Insight Journal is available here: https://lnkd.in/e8vfDQ_J
Our article is in very good company with David Carlin, Valentina Cavanna, Roger Cruz, Paul Flood, Robert Fullerton, CFA, Nathalie Gaullier, Satoshi ISHIHARA, Emilie Goodall, Will Goodhart, Albert Seoane Miguel, Cécilia Vernhes
