List of material topics

Disclosure focus

Disclosure 3-2 requires an organization to list all of its material topics and report changes to the list compared with the previous reporting period.

Material topics are topics that represent the organization’s most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people, including impacts on their human rights. They are not simply the issues that are most important to the organization’s strategy, financial performance, enterprise risks or communications.

The material topics reported under GRI 3-2 must be the final organization-wide topics resulting from the process reported under GRI 3-1. An internal risk register, departmental priority list, stakeholder-concern list or Board agenda should not be used as the GRI 3-2 list unless it has been assessed and confirmed through the GRI impact-materiality process.

The organization must report every topic it has determined to be material. It should not publish only a top-ten list, a financially material subset, topics supported by available data, or topics selected for external communication. Material topics cannot be deprioritized because they are not considered financially material.

Topic names can use the terminology of GRI Topic Standards, GRI Sector Standards or organization-specific wording. The names should be clear, consistent and sufficiently specific to communicate the impacts represented by the topic.

The organization can group material topics by relevant categories where this improves communication. It can also identify which material topics represent negative human rights impacts. Grouping should not obscure the individual topics.

The organization must report changes to the list compared with the previous reporting period. It should identify topics that were added, removed, merged, split, renamed or reclassified. If there were no changes, it should state this directly. If this is the first reporting period, it should state that no previous list exists for comparison.

Identifying the changes is mandatory. Explaining why a topic was added or removed is Guidance and is recommended for transparency but is not a separate mandatory sub-requirement.

The material topics listed under GRI 3-2 must also be included in the GRI content index. A content-index entry that only gives the location of the GRI 3-2 disclosure does not replace the requirement to include the material-topic list in the index.

Where a GRI Sector Standard applies, the organization must review every topic in that Sector Standard. Topics from the applicable Sector Standard determined not material must be listed separately in the GRI content index with a brief explanation of why they are not material. They should not be included in the material-topic list and should not be silently omitted.

The process used to determine the topics is reported under GRI 3-1. The organization’s management of each topic is reported under GRI 3-3. Approval records, topic definitions and change reasons are useful evidence but are not additional GRI 3-2 datapoints.

GRI 3-2 does not require a materiality matrix, topic count, ranking, score, percentage, headline value or quantitative table. Such information can be included as additional context but does not replace the complete list and the change statement.

Required qualitative information should not be estimated. Reasons for omission are not permitted for Disclosure 3-2. An organization reporting in accordance with the GRI Standards must report both the complete material-topic list and the comparison with the previous reporting period.

This LRA educational guidance supports disclosure preparation. For the exact requirements, always refer to the official Global Reporting Initiative source.