Choosing where to focus our efforts – our materiality matrix
As a company with sustainability and nature at its core, it is important for us to keep an open dialogue with our key stakeholders and ensure that our sustainability strategy stays up to date with the latest trends and risks. In 2023, Hero completed its double materiality assessment – this is an evolution from the first materiality assessment that we completed in 2021.
“We have a focused team from across our organization and a clear sustainability commitment across our full value chain. We talked to colleagues and external experts to understand where we can make a difference.”
Rob Versloot
Chief Executive Officer Hero Group
Where did it come from?
Our sustainability strategy is informed by this extensive and iterative consultation process to be sure that we focus our efforts on areas where we can have the biggest impact on our planet, our society, and our economy.
We’re listening
As part of our sustainability efforts, we engage regularly with partners in the various countries within which we operate to make sure we understand the impacts that our operations have on the wider world and are taking the right steps to manage them. We also undertook an enterprise risk management process which identifies operational, strategic, and reputational risks to our business.
How was the matrix created?
We worked with external experts to collate this information into a double materiality assessment. Policy makers, representatives from civil society, food system experts, regulators, and NGOs – as well as internal experts ranked environmental, social and governance issues We have a focused team from across our organization and a clear sustainability commitment across our full value chain. We talked to colleagues and external experts to understand where we can make a difference.
The assessment looked at the positive impact that our business can have; and also what the financial impact of ESG-related issues might be if not implement to our sustainability strategy.
Material topics
We were pleased to see that, overall, our double materiality assessment confirmed that our four-pillar sustainability strategy prioritizes the right issues. We will continue to integrate material topics into our sustainability and core business activities.
