Stakeholders and materiality

In 2019, we recalibrated our materiality assessment of 2018. The materiality assessment produced the following list of 15 material topics, which are directly related to our strategy, our control framework and our risk management.

The materiality matrix below shows how important these topics are to us and to our stakeholders.

We used the following steps to arrive at the choice of material topics and to determine the materiality matrix for 2019:

  1. The material topics were reviewed and ranked by the Board of Management in 2019. This approach resulted in 15 instead of 16 material topics. The material topic 'Reliability of energy supply, availability of grid' that was presented in the previous year was removed in 2019. This topic is very similar to 'Supply security' and also has the same key performance indicator (KPI). 'Improving sustainability of purchasing activities' was altered to 'Social responsibility in the supply chain' to reflect our ambition in this area better. In addition to making the annual selection of topics, the Board of Management is responsible for management and control in relation to them. This takes place by means of reports on the adopted KPIs, each issued at their own frequency (monthly, quarterly and half-yearly).
  2. The Supervisory Board subsequently discussed and confirmed the choice and ranking of the material topics.
  3. In a written survey, we asked representatives of our stakeholder groups to determine what impact each of the 15 material topics has on their business operations. They were also invited to add new material topics. In this way, they determine which topics we should highlight at any rate in our annual report. We defined the following stakeholder groups.
    • Internal: the members of the Works Council and the Makers of the Future (our trainees);
    • External: business customers, our customer panel, shareholders, local environment/communities, government and regulators, suppliers, the energy supply chain, NGOs, investors and rating agencies and partners. A total of 361 stakeholders indicated the impact of each topic.
  4. The result of the ranking by Stedin as well as that by our stakeholders is reflected in the materiality matrix within this section. In the Connectivity table, we show how the material topics correlate to our strategy, risks, KPIs and objectives.