Drawing on the lessons learned from Financial Reporting Lab participants, the report, Materiality in practice:applying a materiality mindset, is intended to act as a toolkit to help companies apply a materiality mindset to reporting.  The report covers three key areas:

• Think about investor needs and decision-making.  Understanding how investors use information to make decisions helps boards and management when making materiality assessments.  This aspect of the toolkit provides readers with an understanding as to what information investors look for in an annual report and how they use that for decision-making.   
• Take a holistic approach to materiality.  The report encourages companies to think holistically about what information is material to their stakeholders when preparing annual reports.  It identifies that boards and management can benefit from aligning their materiality assessments more with investor needs and explores how companies can take a more holistic and connected approach to materiality.
• Embed a materiality mindset.  This part of the report provides guidance and tips on how to embed a materiality mindset into corporate reporting.

Applying a holistic mindset is also important for sustainability-related reporting as highlighted in two previous reports by the Financial Reporting Lab (ESG data production and ESG data distribution and consumption).  The findings of those reports have now been brought together into one useful summary.

A press release, the full report and the summary of the previous two Financial Reporting Lab reports are available on the FRC website.