Materiality Navigator — Software and Services

Environment
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Management of electricity demand, renewable electricity procurement, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and carbon claim integrity for the digital infrastructure used to host, process and deliver software and IT services.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services providers use cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes, server rooms, graphics processing units, storage arrays, network equipment and development workstations to deliver software-as-a-service, managed services, analytics and AI workloads. Growth in AI training and inference makes location-specific power sourcing and credible renewable electricity claims more material than traditional office energy management.

Why it may be material

Electricity is a major cost and emissions source for hosted platforms and AI-enabled products. Enterprise, public-sector and regulated-industry customers increasingly request cloud emissions data and credible digital operations transition plans, linking energy performance to customer retention, procurement access, financing and valuation.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream or downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS E1 Climate changesearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 302 Energysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 305 Emissionssearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental Footprint of Hardware Infrastructure

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Environment
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Energy and climate transition management for the compute infrastructure that hosts internet media platforms, advertising systems, machine learning models and content delivery networks.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services platforms rely on owned and leased data centres, co-location cages, edge sites, server fleets, GPUs, TPUs, storage arrays and content delivery networks to run search, feeds, streaming, ad auctions, fraud detection, moderation and personalisation. Growth in generative AI and real-time recommendation increases electricity demand, grid connection pressure and scrutiny of the carbon intensity of digital services.

Why it may be material

Always-on compute and network capacity are direct operating cost and capital expenditure drivers, while climate disclosure, renewable power quality and AI energy intensity affect investor confidence, enterprise customer mandates, advertiser expectations and local grid acceptance.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on the atmosphere?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on future generations?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Climate change, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissionssearch disclosure cards
GRI Energy and emissions disclosuressearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental footprint of hardware infrastructure for Internet Media & Services

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Environment
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Lifecycle management of platform hardware, including replacement, reuse, secure destruction and recycling of servers, drives, batteries, chips and network equipment.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services firms refresh servers, GPUs, storage arrays, batteries, switches and test devices to support platform growth, AI workloads, search indexes and low-latency content delivery. Failed drives and decommissioned equipment move through secure chain-of-custody processes to repair depots, destruction vendors, refurbishment, resale or recycling.

Why it may be material

Rapid hardware replacement creates persistent electronic waste streams containing metals, plastics, batteries and data-bearing media. Poor controls can create hazardous waste impacts, privacy harm, disposal liabilities and reputational damage, while circular practices can recover value and reduce procurement exposure.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach ecosystems.
Potential effects may reach soil and groundwater.
Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach supply-chain workers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Business partners, Customers / end-users, Suppliers, Value chain workers.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on ecosystems?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem-impact evidence
Soil and groundwater monitoring, incident and remediation records
Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Supplier workforce, audit, grievance and remediation records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Server fleets with CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, storage arrays, networking switches, load balancers and backup power systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream or upstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Business partners
Customers / end-users
Suppliers
Value chain workers

Users of the information

Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Resource use and circular economy; pollution where hazardous components are materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI Waste, including electronic and hazardous waste streamssearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental footprint of hardware infrastructure

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Environment
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Lifecycle management of computing hardware, including procurement choices, embodied carbon, useful life extension, certified refurbishment or recycling, secure destruction of data-bearing media and control of hazardous residues.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services companies buy servers, graphics processing units, storage arrays, switches, routers, laptops, mobile devices, batteries and peripherals, then retire them through refurbishment, resale, shredding or electronic waste recycling providers. Rapid cloud and AI refresh cycles increase embodied carbon, capital expenditure and data-bearing asset disposition challenges.

Why it may be material

Hardware refresh rates affect capital expenditure, depreciation, Scope 3 emissions and waste generation. Poor asset disposition can create data leakage liabilities, hazardous waste exposure and reputational damage, while longer-life or refurbished equipment can reduce procurement costs and embodied impacts.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach ecosystems.
Potential effects may reach soil and groundwater.
Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Potential effects may reach supply-chain workers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users, Suppliers.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream, Downstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on ecosystems?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem-impact evidence
Soil and groundwater monitoring, incident and remediation records
Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Supplier workforce, audit, grievance and remediation records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Rising electricity demand from cloud computing, artificial intelligence training and inference, increasing scrutiny of data centre power procurement
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Customer procurement requirements for measurable cloud emissions, renewable electricity matching, supplier diversity and secure-by-design evidence
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Growing concern over electronic waste from rapid hardware refresh cycles and embodied carbon in servers, networking equipment and end-user devices

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream or downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users
Suppliers

Users of the information

Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS E5 Resource use and circular economysearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS E1 for embodied carbon where materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 301 Materialssearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 306 Wastesearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 305 Emissionssearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental Footprint of Hardware Infrastructure

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Environment
Business-model dependent
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Routine water management for data centre cooling, humidification and related power supply chains, especially where cloud and AI capacity add pressure to stressed catchments.

How it shows up in this industry

Cloud data centres, edge nodes and co-location facilities may use evaporative cooling and humidification to maintain server reliability. Water impacts are especially salient where AI and cloud capacity is concentrated in water-stressed catchments or where purchased electricity and hardware supply chains also embed water use.

Why it may be material

Water is material for providers with owned or directly contracted data centre capacity in water-stressed regions, or with cooling designs that compete with local users during drought or heat events. Materiality is lower for purely office-based software firms using cloud providers with limited operational control.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Potential effects may reach ecosystems.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on water bodies?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on ecosystems?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem-impact evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Individual consumers using mobile applications, productivity tools, games, cloud storage and digital identity services

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Investors / creditors
Local authorities
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS E3 Water and marine resourcessearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 303 Water and Effluentssearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental Footprint of Hardware Infrastructure

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Environment
Business-model dependent
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Management of water, cooling, heat discharge, local air emissions and amenity pressures associated with the physical infrastructure used to deliver internet media services.

How it shows up in this industry

Large internet media platforms operate data centre campuses, co-location cages and edge computing sites with cooling units, substations, backup diesel or battery systems and traffic routing infrastructure. Facilities supporting AI, streaming and ad-serving workloads can affect local water availability, create heat discharge, add noise and traffic, and generate local air pollutants from backup power.

Why it may be material

Materiality depends on site location, cooling design and grid context, but water and local siting constraints can delay capacity expansion, increase capital expenditure, restrict operations during drought or heat events and affect the local licence to operate.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach ecosystems.
Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on water bodies?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on affected communities?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem-impact evidence
Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Server fleets with CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, storage arrays, networking switches, load balancers and backup power systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Local authorities
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Water and marine resources; pollution where backup generator emissions are materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI Water and effluents; emissions where generator pollutants are materialsearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental footprint of hardware infrastructure; water and local siting are only partly addressed

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Impacts from machine learning and rule-based systems that rank, recommend, personalise, moderate, translate or target content and services across internet media platforms.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media platforms operate recommendation engines, search indexes, ranking models, trend lists, fraud scores, automated moderation and personalisation systems. These systems determine what users see, which creators and publishers are discoverable, how businesses obtain traffic, and whether lawful speech or harmful content is amplified or suppressed.

Why it may be material

Algorithmic systems are core outputs of internet media and services. Model design, training data and optimisation targets shape information access, civic discourse, commercial visibility and discriminatory outcomes, while regulation under platform and AI regimes is increasing audit and transparency expectations.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trained machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, content moderation and personalisation
Process-map item (customers): Individual internet users accessing search, social media, messaging, streaming, forums, maps, marketplaces or content discovery services
Process-map item (customers): Advertisers and media agencies buying search, display, video, influencer, retail media or app-install advertising
Process-map item (customers): Publishers, creators, streamers and influencers monetising audiences through platform tools and revenue-sharing arrangements

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users; business conduct for governance of automated decision processessearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer health and safety; marketing and labelling where algorithmic explanations affect userssearch disclosure cards
SASB Internet Media & Services content moderation, data privacy and advertising standards where applicable

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Protection of children and young users from harmful content, grooming, exploitative targeting, compulsive-use design and unsafe recommendation or messaging features.

How it shows up in this industry

Social media, messaging, streaming, forums and content discovery services often serve mixed-age audiences. User onboarding, identity management, notifications, autoplay, recommendations, direct messaging, advertising targeting and complaint routing are relevant to child protection under the UK Online Safety Act 2023, COPPA, GDPR and national child-safety enforcement regimes.

Why it may be material

Child protection has become a board-level compliance, litigation and product-design issue as regulators focus on illegal content, harmful content, addictive design, age assurance and the adequacy of moderation workflows for young users.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Potential effects may reach emergency responders.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on affected communities?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Emergency-response plans, incident logs and responder feedback
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling
Process-map item (customers): Individual internet users accessing search, social media, messaging, streaming, forums, maps, marketplaces or content discovery services
Process-map item (customers): Political campaigns, public bodies and civil society organisations using online communication, outreach or information services
Process-map item (customers): Payment processors, affiliate networks, ad exchanges and demand-side platforms acting as intermediaries in digital advertising supply chains
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Regulatory expansion on systemic platform risk, recommender systems, targeted advertising, dark patterns and online child protection

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users, especially consumer safety and privacy-related impactssearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer health and safety and privacy-related disclosuressearch disclosure cards
SASB Internet Media & Services data privacy, advertising standards and content governance where child impacts are relevant

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

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Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Mental health, safety and working-condition impacts on employees, contractors and outsourced workers who review harmful content, investigate abuse, label training data or provide user support for internet platforms.

How it shows up in this industry

Trust and safety operations centres route user content, complaints, appeals and law enforcement escalations to automated classifiers and human review teams. Moderators, data labellers, security analysts and support agents may review violent, abusive, illegal or self-harm material under productivity monitoring, while generative AI and online safety regulation increase review volume and complexity.

Why it may be material

Human review remains essential for content moderation, appeal handling, policy enforcement and AI data labelling. Poor conditions can cause psychological harm, attrition, employment litigation, higher operating costs and reduced quality of safety decisions.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach contractors.
Potential effects may reach supply-chain workers.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Contractors, Employees, Suppliers, Trade unions, Value chain workers.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on workers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on contractors?
What litigation or claims could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Contractor working-condition, incident and engagement records
Supplier workforce, audit, grievance and remediation records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trained machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, content moderation and personalisation
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Contractors
Employees
Suppliers
Trade unions
Value chain workers

Users of the information

Board / management
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Own workforce and workers in the value chain, including health, safety and working conditionssearch disclosure cards
GRI Occupational health and safety, employment and trainingsearch disclosure cards
SASB Employee recruitment, inclusion and performance may not fully capture moderation trauma impacts

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Management of user and community harms from hosting, distributing, inadequately removing or inconsistently enforcing policies for harmful content and abusive behaviour on internet media platforms.

How it shows up in this industry

Search, social media, messaging, streaming, forums, maps, reviews and content discovery services ingest user-generated content and route complaints to automated classifiers, human review queues, appeal processes and law enforcement escalation channels. Trust and safety operations are central to compliance with online safety and platform accountability regimes.

Why it may be material

User safety failures can trigger fines, mandated product changes, advertiser boycotts, app-store restrictions, litigation, insurance pressure and user churn. The issue arises directly from the core service design of internet media platforms that host, distribute and monetise user content.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Potential effects may reach emergency responders.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Emergency-response plans, incident logs and responder feedback
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trained machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, content moderation and personalisation
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling
Process-map item (customers): Individual internet users accessing search, social media, messaging, streaming, forums, maps, marketplaces or content discovery services

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users, including personal safety and information-related impactssearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer health and safety and marketing-related responsibility, applied to digital servicessearch disclosure cards
SASB Content moderation, freedom of expression and advertising integrity for Internet Media & Services

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Responsible design, deployment and oversight of AI systems and automated decisions, including bias testing, explainability, safety, data provenance, documentation and human oversight for high-impact software use cases.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services companies build analytics dashboards, machine-learning models, generative AI features, automated workflow decisions and fraud, credit, hiring, healthcare, insurance or public-service tools. Model outputs can affect eligibility, access, prices, employment and public services, while training data provenance and conformity assessment are gaining regulatory salience.

Why it may be material

AI-enabled revenue growth depends on trust, auditability and compliance in high-impact use cases. Poor governance can harm people through biased or erroneous decisions and create litigation, customer assurance failures, regulatory non-compliance, model remediation costs and loss of procurement access.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (assets): Corporate offices, development centres, call centres, security operations centres and training facilities
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-userssearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS G1 Business conduct where governance of high-risk systems is relevantsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 416 Customer Health and Safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacy may provide partial anchors depending on use casesearch disclosure cards
SASB SASB Software & IT Services has related but not comprehensive coverage under data privacy, data security and systemic technology disruption topics

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

User, civic and market impacts from targeted advertising, real-time bidding, audience measurement, political ad transparency, brand safety controls, ad fraud prevention and advertiser access to platform audiences.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media platforms create search, display, video, influencer, retail media and app-install advertising impressions through ad inventory creation, real-time bidding, targeting, delivery, measurement, billing and fraud detection. Political campaigns, advertisers and media agencies increasingly require auditable placement, brand safety and transparent campaign reporting.

Why it may be material

Advertising is a primary revenue model for many internet media and services firms. Targeting criteria, audience segments, auction logic and placement controls determine who is reached, excluded, manipulated or exposed to unsafe advertising, and failures can cause advertiser boycotts, fines and revenue loss.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Trained machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, content moderation and personalisation
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling
Process-map item (customers): Advertisers and media agencies buying search, display, video, influencer, retail media or app-install advertising
Process-map item (customers): Political campaigns, public bodies and civil society organisations using online communication, outreach or information services
Process-map item (customers): Payment processors, affiliate networks, ad exchanges and demand-side platforms acting as intermediaries in digital advertising supply chains

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users; business conduct for responsible commercial practicessearch disclosure cards
GRI Marketing and labelling; customer privacy where tracking is integralsearch disclosure cards
SASB Internet Media & Services data privacy, advertising standards and freedom of expression

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Quality and reliability management for software releases, implementations, configurations, migrations and managed services where defects or failed updates can disrupt customer operations or essential digital services.

How it shows up in this industry

Software architecture, coding, testing, release management, customer implementation, data migration, configuration and managed service operations can create real-world disruption when defects or failed updates affect payroll, healthcare, education, transport, finance, utilities or emergency service systems. These failures may occur without a malicious cyber event.

Why it may be material

Reliability is central to subscription renewals, implementation milestones, service-level agreements and customer trust. Defects and failed releases can cause downstream service interruption, indemnity claims, customer churn, professional services rework and technology errors and omissions insurance exposure.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach emergency responders.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on downstream users?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What evidence shows that customer demand is changing?

Evidence to collect

Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Emergency-response plans, incident logs and responder feedback
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-users where product or service failures affect userssearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 416 Customer Health and Safety may apply where software failures create safety or access impactssearch disclosure cards
SASB Managing Systemic Risks from Technology Disruptions

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Management of workforce capacity, skills, wellbeing and employment conditions across software development, security operations, customer support, consulting and managed services delivery.

How it shows up in this industry

Revenue delivery depends on software engineers, product managers, consultants, data scientists, cybersecurity analysts, site reliability engineers and customer support agents. These roles face intense release cycles, on-call incident response, remote delivery pressure and rapid reskilling needs in AI, cloud and secure software development.

Why it may be material

People costs are a major operating expense and capability constraint for software and IT services firms. Attrition, burnout or insufficient AI and cybersecurity skills can delay implementation milestones, weaken service quality, increase recruitment costs and impair the value of product roadmaps and customer relationships.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach contractors.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Contractors, Customers / end-users, Employees, Trade unions.
The source places the pathway in Own operations.

Financial pathway

The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on workers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on contractors?
Could this topic change operating costs or the cost of controls and remediation?
What evidence shows that customer demand is changing?

Evidence to collect

Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Contractor working-condition, incident and engagement records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Corporate offices, development centres, call centres, security operations centres and training facilities
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Individual consumers using mobile applications, productivity tools, games, cloud storage and digital identity services

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.

Affected stakeholders

Contractors
Customers / end-users
Employees
Trade unions

Users of the information

Board / management

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S1 Own workforcesearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 401 Employmentsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 403 Occupational Health and Safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 404 Training and Educationsearch disclosure cards
SASB Recruiting and Managing a Global, Diverse and Skilled Workforce

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Management of product design patterns that can manipulate consent, attention, cancellation, purchasing or data sharing, including special protections for children and users exposed to engagement-driven software features.

How it shows up in this industry

Software is delivered through mobile applications, web portals, app stores, online marketplaces and enterprise platforms. Consumer and SME products often use telemetry, subscription flows, behavioural prompts and engagement optimisation, while regulators and civil society scrutinise dark patterns, addictive design, children’s online safety and misleading cancellation journeys.

Why it may be material

Harmful design can undermine user autonomy and create consumer protection enforcement, refunds, litigation, app store restrictions, product redesign costs and brand damage. Fair design can improve trust and retention, especially for consumer, education and public-facing applications.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on downstream users?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers and utilities embedding software into operations, supply chains and customer channels

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-users, including information-related impacts and personal safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 417 Marketing and Labellingsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacy as proxy areassearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Privacy and Freedom of Expression; no full dark-pattern or children’s safety topic

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Inclusive design and accessibility of software products and digital services, particularly where public, financial, healthcare, education or employment services move online and inaccessible interfaces exclude disabled, older, low-income or connectivity-constrained users.

How it shows up in this industry

The industry supplies mobile applications, software-as-a-service products, public-sector platforms, school and healthcare systems, digital identity tools and customer service portals. Inaccessible interfaces, unaffordable products, digital-only models, poor connectivity assumptions and limited interoperability can exclude users from employment, education, finance, healthcare, public services and commerce.

Why it may be material

As essential services move online, accessibility and inclusion affect user rights, public procurement and customer satisfaction. Equality legislation, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines requirements and public-sector tender rules can make accessibility evidence financially material.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on downstream users?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Financial institutions, insurers and payment companies using core banking, fraud detection, trading, risk and compliance systems

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Local authorities
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-users, including access to products and servicessearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 416 Customer Health and Safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 417 Marketing and Labelling may be partial proxies; accessibility is not fully capturedsearch disclosure cards
SASB SASB Software & IT Services does not clearly anchor accessibility and digital exclusion

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Workforce practices affecting recruitment, retention, inclusion, development and sustainable performance of the technical and commercial teams that design, secure and operate internet media platforms.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services firms depend on engineers, product managers, data scientists, trust and safety policy teams, sales staff, legal specialists and security analysts to build and operate recommendation engines, ad auctions, APIs, identity services, machine learning models and content delivery platforms. Competition for AI, security and infrastructure talent is high, and product decisions made by these teams shape user safety, privacy and platform integrity.

Why it may be material

Talent attraction, inclusion and retention affect innovation velocity, platform reliability, AI governance and compliance delivery. Weak workforce inclusion or excessive workload can increase attrition, impair product quality and undermine the ability to meet expanding regulatory expectations.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach workers.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Employees, Trade unions.
The source places the pathway in Own operations.

Financial pathway

The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on workers?
Could this topic change operating costs or the cost of controls and remediation?
Could this topic affect demand, pricing, market access or revenue?
What evidence shows that customer demand is changing?

Evidence to collect

Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Proprietary software codebases, mobile apps, web portals, APIs, recommendation engines and ad auction platforms
Process-map item (customers): Payment processors, affiliate networks, ad exchanges and demand-side platforms acting as intermediaries in digital advertising supply chains
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Generative AI increasing synthetic content, deepfakes, copyright disputes, search disruption, moderation workload and compute demand
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Rising scrutiny of data centre electricity sourcing, grid congestion, water use and the carbon intensity of AI training and inference
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Antitrust action targeting self-preferencing, app store terms, ad-tech integration, data portability and interoperability barriers

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.

Affected stakeholders

Employees
Trade unions

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Own workforce, training and development, diversity and equal treatmentsearch disclosure cards
GRI Employment, training and education, diversity and equal opportunitysearch disclosure cards
SASB Employee recruitment, inclusion and performance for Internet Media & Services

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

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Social
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Human rights and working condition impacts affecting workers in outsourced delivery, customer support, content moderation and the hardware supply chains that support software and cloud services.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services use offshore delivery centres, outsourced help desks, content moderation teams, managed service partners, hardware manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers and logistics providers. High-volume support, moderation, implementation and electronics production work can involve psychosocial strain, excessive hours, insecure classification and labour rights concerns.

Why it may be material

Although value creation is software-led, many firms depend on global delivery and hardware supply chains to serve customers. Weak due diligence can harm workers, reduce delivery resilience, create litigation or procurement loss, and undermine customer assurance requirements.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach supply-chain workers.
Potential effects may reach contractors.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Contractors, Customers / end-users, Suppliers, Trade unions, Value chain workers.
The source places the pathway in Upstream, Own operations, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on supply-chain workers?
What evidence shows that customer demand is changing?

Evidence to collect

Supplier workforce, audit, grievance and remediation records
Contractor working-condition, incident and engagement records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Disaster recovery sites, content delivery network arrangements and redundant connectivity links
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers and utilities embedding software into operations, supply chains and customer channels
Process-map item (customers): Individual consumers using mobile applications, productivity tools, games, cloud storage and digital identity services

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Contractors
Customers / end-users
Suppliers
Trade unions
Value chain workers

Users of the information

NGOs / civil society

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S2 Workers in the value chainsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 408 Child Laborsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 409 Forced or Compulsory Laborsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 414 Supplier Social Assessment depending on boundarysearch disclosure cards
SASB Recruiting and Managing a Global, Diverse and Skilled Workforce; supplier labour topics may require expert mapping

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Optional / niche
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Community-level impacts from the physical footprint of digital infrastructure, including siting, construction disturbance, generator emissions, local grid pressure, traffic, noise and perceived local burden from data centre and edge operations.

How it shows up in this industry

Large cloud regions, data centre campuses, co-location sites and edge nodes require land, construction works, security, cooling plant, backup diesel generators and grid connections. These physical features can create local amenity burdens even though software products are delivered digitally.

Why it may be material

This topic is most material for companies that own, anchor or materially influence large data centre developments or edge facilities near residential areas. Community concerns can affect planning consent, expansion timelines, mitigation costs and local acceptance.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach contractors.
Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Contractors.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on affected communities?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on workers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Contractor working-condition, incident and engagement records
Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Individual consumers using mobile applications, productivity tools, games, cloud storage and digital identity services

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The optional or niche activity linked to the topic is not present.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Contractors

Users of the information

Board / management
Local authorities
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S3 Affected communitiessearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 413 Local Communitiessearch disclosure cards
SASB SASB Software & IT Services has no clear dedicated community amenity topic; partial linkage may exist through environmental infrastructure metrics

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Social
Optional / niche
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Product responsibility for misuse pathways in software platforms, APIs, AI features and dual-use tools that can amplify harmful content, facilitate fraud or surveillance, or weaken information integrity.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services may provide platforms, recommendation systems, scraping tools, remote administration software, encryption, facial recognition, developer APIs, generative AI features and user-generated content services. These tools can shape information flows, enable fraud or surveillance, or be repurposed by harmful actors if misuse controls are weak.

Why it may be material

Materiality depends on business model, product functionality and user reach. It is high for platforms, AI products, remote administration tools, identity systems and developer services that can be misused at scale, and lower for narrowly deployed enterprise software with limited public-facing functionality.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (assets): Disaster recovery sites, content delivery network arrangements and redundant connectivity links
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The optional or niche activity linked to the topic is not present.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-userssearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS G1 Business conduct where governance controls are relevantsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 416 Customer Health and Safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 417 Marketing and Labelling orsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacy may apply depending on impact pathwaysearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Privacy and Freedom of Expression; Managing Systemic Risks from Technology Disruptions where relevant

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality
Cross-cutting

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Security and resilience of the digital infrastructure, user accounts, data stores, APIs, DNS, content delivery and advertising systems that support internet media services.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services firms operate user accounts, social graphs, advertiser databases, APIs, identity services, DNS infrastructure, content delivery networks, traffic routing systems and security operations centres. Attacks can expose personal data, disrupt search or streaming access, manipulate ad traffic, compromise creators and advertisers, or degrade trust in platform identity and payment tools.

Why it may be material

Cyber incidents can cause business interruption, user and advertiser churn, breach notification costs, regulatory penalties, cyber insurance repricing and loss of confidence in platform identity, measurement and payment systems. Security infrastructure is also a recurring capital and operating cost requirement.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trust and safety operations centres, security operations centres and customer support tooling
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): Publishers, creators, streamers and influencers monetising audiences through platform tools and revenue-sharing arrangements

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Media
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users; business conduct and risk management where cybersecurity affects userssearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer privacy for breaches involving personal datasearch disclosure cards
SASB Data security for Internet Media & Services

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality
Cross-cutting

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance and operational controls that prevent, detect, contain and recover from cyber incidents, software vulnerabilities and technology disruptions affecting customer data, customer systems and critical digital services.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services companies manage source code, APIs, build pipelines, identity directories, encryption keys, telemetry logs, customer data sets and cloud operations. Compromised updates, insecure remote administration, ransomware, failed patches or outages can cascade into customer systems used for finance, healthcare, education, utilities, payroll and public services.

Why it may be material

Security and service resilience are central to customer trust, renewal decisions, vendor due diligence and regulatory obligations. Failures can trigger service-level credits, customer churn, incident response costs, enforcement, litigation, cyber insurance exclusions and loss of public-sector or enterprise market access.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach emergency responders.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Affected communities, Business partners, Customers / end-users, Employees.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Emergency-response plans, incident logs and responder feedback
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (assets): Corporate offices, development centres, call centres, security operations centres and training facilities
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Affected communities
Business partners
Customers / end-users
Employees

Users of the information

Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS G1 Business conductsearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-users where service disruption affects userssearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacy and topic-specific governance disclosuressearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Security and Managing Systemic Risks from Technology Disruptions

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of where customer data, telemetry, encryption keys and support access are stored, processed and transferred, including sovereign cloud architectures, transfer mechanisms, export controls, sanctions screening and customer data residency commitments.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services are delivered through cloud regions, content delivery networks, telecommunications carriers, remote access tools, offshore delivery centres, virtual private networks and customer integrations. Cross-border delivery is constrained by data localisation, transfer mechanisms, sanctions regimes, encryption controls, advanced computing export controls and sovereignty requirements in public-sector, financial services and healthcare customers.

Why it may be material

Geopolitical fragmentation is turning data residency and lawful transfer architecture into a market-access issue. Mismanagement can affect personal data rights and service continuity while creating fines, contract termination, duplicated regional infrastructure costs and revenue loss in regulated sectors.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Financial institutions, insurers and payment companies using core banking, fraud detection, trading, risk and compliance systems

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS G1 Business conductsearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS S4 where end-user rights are affected by digital service restrictionssearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 2 governance disclosuressearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Privacy and Data Security

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality
Cross-cutting

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance and impact accountability for open-source and third-party software dependencies, software bills of materials, secure build pipelines, update channels, intellectual property rights and component provenance embedded in software products and AI-enabled services.

How it shows up in this industry

Software products are built through code review, version control, continuous integration and delivery, open-source components, third-party libraries, commercial licences, development frameworks, APIs, model weights and reusable components maintained by external developer communities. Unpatched dependencies, compromised updates, unlicensed code or training data disputes can compromise customer systems and threaten proprietary asset value.

Why it may be material

Dependency governance affects delivery speed, customer security assurance, public procurement, litigation exposure and the value of codebases. Software bills of materials and secure-by-design evidence are increasingly expected by enterprise and public-sector customers after software supply-chain attacks.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users, Suppliers.
The source places the pathway in Upstream, Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Corporate offices, development centres, call centres, security operations centres and training facilities
Process-map item (assets): End-user computing estate including laptops, mobile devices, testing devices and secure developer workstations
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream or downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users
Suppliers

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS G1 Business conductsearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-users where dependency failures affect userssearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 416 Customer Health and Safetysearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacy or governance disclosures may apply by impact pathwaysearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Security and Managing Systemic Risks from Technology Disruptions

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of platform power over creators, publishers, developers, advertisers and small businesses through competition conduct, interoperability, ranking neutrality, API access, revenue-sharing rules and restrictions on self-preferencing.

How it shows up in this industry

Dominant search, social, advertising, app, marketplace and identity platforms can control rankings, ad auctions, traffic referrals, API access, app distribution terms, revenue shares and business-user data. EU Digital Markets Act obligations and antitrust actions are increasing scrutiny of self-preferencing, interoperability barriers, ad-tech integration and access to platform audiences.

Why it may be material

Competition enforcement can lead to fines, structural or behavioural remedies, mandated access to data and changes to ranking or ad-tech integration. Platform rule changes also affect creators, publishers, developers and small businesses that depend on visibility, monetisation and audience access.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users, Suppliers.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on downstream users?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Server fleets with CPUs, GPUs, TPUs, storage arrays, networking switches, load balancers and backup power systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): Publishers, creators, streamers and influencers monetising audiences through platform tools and revenue-sharing arrangements

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users
Suppliers

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Business conduct, anti-competitive behaviour and relationship with business partnerssearch disclosure cards
GRI Anti-competitive behavioursearch disclosure cards
SASB Intellectual property protection and competitive behaviour for Internet Media & Services

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of personal data collection, use, retention, sharing, profiling and deletion across software products, cloud services, analytics, telemetry and customer implementation activities.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services providers ingest, cleanse, store and process customer data, transaction records, identity attributes, telemetry, cookies, metadata, backups, user-generated content and model inputs. Privacy-invasive features, excessive retention, weak consent design or opaque tracking can affect consumer applications, enterprise platforms and managed service environments.

Why it may be material

Personal data processing is central to software-as-a-service, mobile applications, analytics platforms, identity systems and managed services. GDPR-style compliance, privacy certifications and data processing terms are material to customer trust, renewal decisions, public-sector procurement and regulatory exposure.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Cloud data centres, co-location racks, edge nodes and server rooms hosting customer workloads and internal platforms
Process-map item (assets): Customer data sets, telemetry logs, identity directories, encryption keys and metadata stores
Process-map item (customers): Large enterprises buying enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, cybersecurity, data analytics and workflow platforms
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Regulation of artificial intelligence model transparency, high-risk automated decision-making, training data provenance and safety testing
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Rising electricity demand from cloud computing, artificial intelligence training and inference, increasing scrutiny of data centre power procurement

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS S4 Consumers and end-userssearch disclosure cards
ESRS ESRS G1 Business conductsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 418 Customer Privacysearch disclosure cards
SASB Data Privacy and Freedom of Expression

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Industry baseline
Strong industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of personal data collection and use in internet media products, advertising systems, identity services, analytics and measurement, including resilience to the decline of third-party tracking.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services businesses collect search queries, account data, cookies, device identifiers, location signals, social graphs, content interactions, advertiser data and transaction metadata to power personalisation, ad auctions, audience segments, measurement and fraud detection. GDPR, UK GDPR, ePrivacy rules, CCPA/CPRA, COPPA and browser or mobile tracking restrictions directly affect targeting precision and monetisation models.

Why it may be material

Large-scale personal data processing is central to search, social media, streaming, maps, ad targeting and measurement. Privacy regulation, tracking restrictions and consent failures can reduce advertising yield, require costly redesign and create fines or litigation, while intrusive data practices directly affect user autonomy and trust.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): Advertisers and media agencies buying search, display, video, influencer, retail media or app-install advertising
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement

It may be less material when…

Organisation-specific evidence does not support significant scale, severity, likelihood or financial effect.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users; business conduct where privacy governance is materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer privacysearch disclosure cards
SASB Data privacy, advertising standards and related user metrics for Internet Media & Services

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Financial materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of ethical conduct, anti-bribery, public procurement integrity, partner channels, licence and product claims, whistleblowing and internal controls across software sales, implementation and regulated digital service delivery.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services firms sell through direct enterprise sales, online self-service, hyperscaler marketplaces, system integrators, resellers and managed service partners, often to public bodies, healthcare providers, financial institutions and utilities. Complex licence terms, implementation promises, security claims, public procurement rules, sanctions screening and digital regulation create sector-specific conduct and compliance exposures.

Why it may be material

Business conduct failures can jeopardise public-sector and regulated-industry market access, trigger fines or bid exclusions, damage customer trust and undermine recurring subscription revenue. Partner channels and implementation services increase third-party conduct exposure.

Impact pathway

Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence shows current or anticipated financial effects on the organisation?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
Could this topic affect demand, pricing, market access or revenue?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Financial institutions, insurers and payment companies using core banking, fraud detection, trading, risk and compliance systems

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS G1 Business conductsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 205 Anti-corruptionsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 206 Anti-competitive Behaviorsearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 2 governance disclosuressearch disclosure cards
SASB SASB Software & IT Services may capture related conduct through data privacy, data security and systemic risk topics; broader business conduct is not a dedicated topic

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of upstream environmental, labour and community impacts embedded in servers, GPUs, specialist chips, batteries, networking equipment, co-location capacity and outsourced cloud infrastructure used by internet media platforms.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services companies procure servers, GPUs, specialist chips, storage drives, batteries, networking equipment, racks, cooling units, cloud services and co-location capacity through global electronics supply chains. Demand for AI compute, storage and network capacity links platforms to semiconductor manufacturing, rare earth extraction, battery production, logistics and outsourced infrastructure impacts.

Why it may be material

Although internet media firms usually do not manufacture chips or servers, their scale and hardware intensity influence upstream labour, emissions, water and mineral impacts. Traceability and supplier due diligence are increasingly material as AI growth raises exposure to constrained, geopolitically sensitive and high-impact supply chains.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach supply-chain workers.
Potential effects may reach ecosystems.
Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Potential effects may reach soil and groundwater.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach Indigenous peoples.
Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Suppliers, Value chain workers.
The source places the pathway in Upstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on supply-chain workers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on ecosystems?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Supplier workforce, audit, grievance and remediation records
Biodiversity, habitat and ecosystem-impact evidence
Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Soil and groundwater monitoring, incident and remediation records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Indigenous engagement, consent, grievance and impact records
Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement
Process-map item (customers): Payment processors, affiliate networks, ad exchanges and demand-side platforms acting as intermediaries in digital advertising supply chains
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Generative AI increasing synthetic content, deepfakes, copyright disputes, search disruption, moderation workload and compute demand
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Data localisation, cross-border transfer restrictions and digital sovereignty requirements fragmenting infrastructure and compliance models

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Suppliers
Value chain workers

Users of the information

Investors / creditors
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Workers in the value chain; resource use and circular economy; supplier relationship managementsearch disclosure cards
GRI Supplier environmental assessment, supplier social assessment and procurement practicessearch disclosure cards
SASB Environmental footprint of hardware infrastructure; data security may be relevant only for outsourced infrastructure controls

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Business-model dependent
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Transparency and governance of lobbying, political contributions, trade association activity and advocacy positions on rules governing internet media platforms and digital advertising markets.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services companies are subject to expanding regulation on privacy, online safety, AI transparency, digital advertising, competition, data localisation and digital taxation. Large platforms often engage with lawmakers, regulators and trade associations on rules that can reshape recommender systems, ad-tech, app distribution, data access, child safety and cross-border operations.

Why it may be material

Public policy engagement can materially influence the regulatory environment for platform business models and public trust in large digital intermediaries. Misalignment between stated commitments and lobbying positions can create reputational damage, investor scrutiny and supervisory distrust.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on affected communities?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Proprietary software codebases, mobile apps, web portals, APIs, recommendation engines and ad auction platforms
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): Publishers, creators, streamers and influencers monetising audiences through platform tools and revenue-sharing arrangements
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized enterprises using platform pages, analytics, paid listings, messaging and commerce tools

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.

Affected stakeholders

Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Business conduct, political engagement and lobbying where materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI Public policy and political contributionssearch disclosure cards
SASB No obvious direct Internet Media & Services topic; may be contextual to governance and regulation

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Business-model dependent
Entity-specific validation required
Financial materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of tax positions, transparency and disputes linked to cross-border digital services revenue and allocation of platform intellectual property income.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media and services groups often generate advertising, subscription, marketplace and data-related income across borders while holding intellectual property, brands, software codebases and data processing know-how in specific jurisdictions. Digital services taxes, permanent establishment disputes and transfer-pricing challenges can affect the allocation of income from search, social, ad-tech, app and API services.

Why it may be material

Tax disputes can create material liabilities, cash tax volatility, reputational pressure and financing scrutiny, especially where revenue is booked across multiple jurisdictions but value is derived from local users, advertiser markets, intangible assets and centralised platform technology.

Impact pathway

The source places the pathway in Own operations, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence shows current or anticipated financial effects on the organisation?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
Could this topic create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities?
Could this topic change operating costs or the cost of controls and remediation?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (customers): Publishers, creators, streamers and influencers monetising audiences through platform tools and revenue-sharing arrangements
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized enterprises using platform pages, analytics, paid listings, messaging and commerce tools
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement
Process-map item (customers): Payment processors, affiliate networks, ad exchanges and demand-side platforms acting as intermediaries in digital advertising supply chains
Process-map item (emerging_pressures): Regulatory expansion on systemic platform risk, recommender systems, targeted advertising, dark patterns and online child protection

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The relevant business model, activity, asset or product is not present or is not significant.

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Business conduct and tax-related governance where materialsearch disclosure cards
GRI Taxsearch disclosure cards
SASB No obvious Internet Media & Services topic; mapping may be outside SASB industry topics

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Emerging issue
Moderate industry signal
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of generative AI and synthetic media features, including training-data rights, output safety, provenance, labelling and accountability for AI-enabled product changes.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media platforms use machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, moderation and personalisation, and increasingly deploy generative AI in search answers, creator tools, ad creative features and synthetic media. Inputs such as licensed media, news feeds, maps data, music, video, stock imagery and third-party datasets create exposure to copyright, provenance, hallucination and deepfake disputes.

Why it may be material

Generative AI can change search, advertising and creator revenue models while increasing moderation workload and legal exposure. Copyright litigation, unsafe advice, impersonation and AI transparency duties can create liabilities, constrain launches and undermine trust in information authenticity.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach workers.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Upstream, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect insurance availability, coverage terms, premiums or claims.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which upstream activities, suppliers or inputs create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What technology changes could alter the topic's impacts or financial effects?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Workforce, health and safety, engagement and grievance records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Insurance coverage, premium, exclusion and claims records
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Trained machine learning models for ranking, targeting, fraud detection, translation, content moderation and personalisation
Process-map item (customers): Individual internet users accessing search, social media, messaging, streaming, forums, maps, marketplaces or content discovery services
Process-map item (customers): Advertisers and media agencies buying search, display, video, influencer, retail media or app-install advertising

It may be less material when…

The organisation's scale, exposure or effects are below the threshold set for further assessment.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant upstream or downstream pathway.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users; business conduct; AI-specific mapping may require judgementsearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer health and safety, marketing communications and intellectual property-adjacent governance where relevantsearch disclosure cards
SASB Related content and data topics exist, but generative AI provenance is not a clear direct fit

See how companies report it →

Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

Saved in this browser. Your notes leave it only when you export the screening.

Governance
Emerging issue
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of cross-border personal data transfers, regional hosting, data localisation, government access requests and digital sovereignty requirements, including the secondary infrastructure footprint of duplicating services across jurisdictions.

How it shows up in this industry

Internet media services replicate high-volume personal data, content libraries, caches and advertising signals across databases, object storage, content delivery networks and regional hosting environments to reduce latency. GDPR, UK GDPR, data transfer rulings, national localisation rules and digital sovereignty policies can fragment infrastructure, alter access controls and increase duplicated data centre capacity.

Why it may be material

Digital sovereignty is becoming material where platforms must redesign cross-border personal data transfers, government request workflows and regional hosting models, creating rights impacts for users and secondary cost, energy and water impacts from duplicated infrastructure.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Potential effects may reach future generations.
Potential effects may reach the atmosphere.
Potential effects may reach water bodies.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Business partners, Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may require capital expenditure to adapt assets, processes or infrastructure.
The topic may change operating costs through resource use, controls, remediation or ongoing management.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may affect asset useful lives, impairment assumptions, valuations or stranded-asset exposure.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on affected communities?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Long-term scenario, cumulative-impact and intergenerational analysis
Emissions, air-quality and atmospheric-impact records linked to the topic
Water withdrawal, discharge, quality and catchment-impact records
Capital plans, asset adaptation budgets and investment approvals
Operating-cost records and budgets linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Asset valuations, useful-life assumptions, impairment tests and stranded-asset analysis
Process-map item (assets): Owned and leased data centres, co-location cages and edge computing sites used to host platforms, ad systems and machine learning workloads
Process-map item (assets): Content delivery network capacity, peering arrangements, domain names, DNS infrastructure and traffic routing systems
Process-map item (assets): User accounts, social graphs, behavioural data sets, content libraries, search indexes and advertiser databases
Process-map item (assets): Intangible assets including brands, creator and publisher relationships, patents, trade marks and data processing know-how
Process-map item (customers): App developers, data partners and enterprise customers using APIs, identity services, cloud-hosted platform tools or audience measurement

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The emerging signal has not yet created a relevant exposure, impact or financial effect for the organisation.

Affected stakeholders

Business partners
Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Local authorities
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS Consumers and end-users for privacy and access impacts; business conduct for governance controls; environmental links may sit under climate and water only as secondary effectssearch disclosure cards
GRI Customer privacy and governance disclosures; environmental infrastructure effects require separate mapping reviewsearch disclosure cards
SASB Privacy, data security and environmental footprint topics may provide partial anchors

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

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Governance
Optional / niche
Entity-specific validation required
Double materiality

Workcard generated from the catalogue

What this topic covers

Governance of lobbying, trade association participation, political contributions and public policy positions on regulation shaping software, cloud, AI, privacy, cybersecurity, platform markets and digital rights.

How it shows up in this industry

Software and IT services companies are affected by rules on AI, data protection, cyber resilience, digital markets, online platforms, accessibility, export controls, sovereign cloud and public procurement. Larger providers and platforms may engage directly or through trade associations on the design of these rules, influencing user rights, market access and competitive conditions.

Why it may be material

Public policy engagement is most material for large providers, platforms, cloud operators and AI vendors with significant regulatory exposure. Misalignment between lobbying positions and public commitments on privacy, safety, competition or climate can create reputational, investor and regulatory scrutiny.

Impact pathway

Potential effects may reach consumers.
Potential effects may reach downstream users.
Potential effects may reach affected communities.
Affected stakeholder groups identified in the source include Customers / end-users.
The source places the pathway in Own operations, Downstream, Cross value chain.

Financial pathway

The topic may affect demand, pricing, market access or product and service revenue.
The topic may create provisions, penalties, remediation costs, claims or other liabilities.
The topic may affect reputation, licences to operate, intellectual property or other intangible value.
The topic may affect access to finance, funding terms or the cost of capital.

Questions to test

What evidence supports both the impact and financial materiality pathways?
Which own operations, assets or decisions create or concentrate the pathway?
Which products, services, customers or end uses create or concentrate the pathway?
Where across the value chain is the pathway most significant?
What is the scale, scope, likelihood and remediability of effects on consumers?
What current or proposed regulation could change the topic's relevance?

Evidence to collect

Consumer outcome, complaint and product-impact records
Downstream-user outcome, complaint and product-use evidence
Community engagement, grievance and impact records
Revenue, demand, pricing and market-access analysis linked to the topic
Provision, claim, penalty, remediation and contingent-liability records
Reputation, licence-to-operate, intellectual-property and other intangible-value evidence
Funding terms, lender or investor requirements and cost-of-capital analysis
Process-map item (assets): Software codebases, application programming interfaces, algorithms, machine-learning models, configuration repositories and build pipelines
Process-map item (assets): Licences for third-party software components, open-source dependencies, patents, trademarks, domain names and service-level methodologies
Process-map item (customers): Small and medium-sized businesses using subscription software, managed IT support, payroll, accounting and collaboration tools
Process-map item (customers): Public-sector bodies, schools, universities, healthcare providers and local authorities procuring software and digital transformation services
Process-map item (customers): Retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers and utilities embedding software into operations, supply chains and customer channels

It may be less material when…

Entity-specific evidence does not show meaningful scale, exposure or effects.
The optional or niche activity linked to the topic is not present.
The organisation has no meaningful exposure to or influence over the relevant downstream pathway.

Affected stakeholders

Customers / end-users

Users of the information

Board / management
Investors / creditors
Media
NGOs / civil society
Regulators

Standards to check

ESRS ESRS G1 Business conduct: political influence and lobbying activitiessearch disclosure cards
GRI GRI 415 Public Policysearch disclosure cards
SASB SASB Software & IT Services has no direct public policy engagement topic

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Your preliminary screening decision

Rationale What evidence supports this preliminary conclusion?

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Which topics should you investigate first?

Initial screening

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