How does a double materiality assessment connect to CSRD and ESRS reporting?

Your DMA results are the blueprint for your Sustainability Statement. You map material impacts to ESRS topical standards, then to the specific disclosure requirements inside them, then to individual datapoints. That mapping establishes the scope, structure and data collection needs for everything you report.

From standards down to datapoints

Think of the mapping as moving from the big picture to the individual metrics.

Level 1, standards. These are the main chapters. Match your material impacts to the umbrella standards, E1 for climate change or S1 for own workforce, to establish which broad topics apply to your business.

Level 2, disclosure requirements. If standards are chapters, disclosure requirements are the sections inside them. This is where you pinpoint the specific rules covering how you describe policies, targets and actions for those impacts.

Level 3, datapoints. The individual sentences, figures and metrics within each section. You screen the mandatory datapoints to build a precise checklist of what needs reporting.

You report the process as well as the result

Under ESRS 2 you disclose the architecture behind how you reached your final list of material topics. Four questions.

Governance and scope. How did you identify and assess material impacts, risks and opportunities across your own operations and your upstream and downstream value chain, and how were those decisions taken?

Methodology. What sources and inputs did you use, and how did you score? This is where your scoring logic, data sources and thresholds get described.

Stakeholder input. Whether and how your assessment was informed by consultation with employees, suppliers, customers or external experts.

Updates. The date of your most recent assessment, and any significant methodology changes since the last reporting period.

One thing worth saying from experience. Auditors can tell when regulatory text has been copied and pasted into this section. What they’re looking for is your company’s operational inputs and the decisions you took.

What you don’t have to report

If you’re new to the framework it’s easy to assume every metric listed in the standards needs disclosing. Two rules say otherwise.

The materiality filter. If a datapoint, quantitative or qualitative, is assessed as non-material to your business, you leave it out. No explanation required.

Undue cost or effort. If primary value chain data can’t be obtained without undue cost or effort, you can use secondary estimates or regional and sector averages while you build data quality over time.

One exception worth knowing. If you conclude that climate change isn’t material, you can’t simply omit ESRS E1. You’re required to provide an explicit, detailed justification for that conclusion.

Under ESRS 2.0, less is more

The revised standards, adopted on 3 July 2026 and currently in scrutiny with the Parliament and Council, cut mandatory datapoints by 61% and remove voluntary ones. The Commission’s language is about disclosing only decision-useful information.

That flips an old default. “When in doubt, include it” used to be safe. Under the revised standards, over-disclosure reads as a sign of poor process rather than diligence.

Kōan has worked on materiality assessments for 9 years, with companies from listed multinationals to first-time reporters across Europe, Asia and the US. If you want a second pair of eyes on your methodology before your auditor finds the gaps, get in touch.

Melina Gkiolma, Sustainability Consultant, Kōan
Published 16 October 2026 · Last reviewed 29 September 2026

Melina Gkiolma is a sustainability consultant at Kōan, specialising in CSRD and ESRS. She previously worked at Deloitte Luxembourg and is a One Young World Ambassador.