Materiality and stakeholders

The material issues assessment process was carried out for the first time in 2017 through an analysis performed internally by top management, which identified the relevant economic, social and environmental aspects for the El.En. Group and its stakeholders; the assessment was reviewed and approved annually. In 2022, taking into account the guidelines of the latest GRI international standards publications, the materiality process was revised through an analysis of the impacts generated by the organisation and conducted in several stages: Initially, we carried out an analysis of the context in which the Group operates in order to identify both the actual and potential impacts, as well as the positive and negative impacts generated by the organisation’s activities and its business relations on the economy, the environment, and people (including human rights), along the entire value chain. We then proceeded to assess the significance of the impacts according to two variables: severity or magnitude of the impact generated and the likelihood of the impact occurring. We assigned each variable a score from 1 to 5 (where 1 means minimum severity and low probability that the impact will occur and 5 means maximum severity and very high probability or certainty that the event will occur or has already occurred). The product of the two variables yielded the impact generated by the company in ESG terms. For the assessment of impacts, we decided to adopt the same methodology and criteria used by the Group for risk rating assessment as part of the risk analysis process, which is based on specific RCM (risk control matrices), in line with international best practices such as the COSO framework and the Confindustria guidelines; we then associated each impact with its material issue and, thanks to the scoring, it was possible to define a relevance threshold for each issue: the result obtained shows an alignment between the priority topics defined through the impact assessment and those identified in previous years. The analysis carried out by El.En. Group thus confirmed the significant topics that had already been identified and divided into six macro-areas: environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, social responsibility, responsibility towards the human resources, product liability, and governance. As in previous years, the materiality analysis was brought to the attention and approval of the Audit, Risk and Sustainability Committee.