Choosing where to focus our efforts – our materiality matrix
We conducted countless interviews and research to determine our sustainability focus areas with the greatest impact on our business and that matter most to our stakeholders.
“We have a focused team from across our organization and a bold commitment to be climate positive. 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 materiality assessment. Policy makers, representatives from civil society, food system experts, regulators, and NGOs – as well as internal experts ranked a list of 38 topics according to how material they thought they were for Hero. We define ‘material’ as issues likely to have an impact on our business, and that matter most to our stakeholders.
22 topics, four impact areas
We selected the top 22 topics from the original 38 and collated them into four areas: Product, Environmental, Social, and Governance. The chart above summarizes the main findings of this work and confirms that our strategy addresses the right topics.
