While preparing the report we measured MATERIALITY's impact on people and on the environment and reached the fairly obvious conclusion that this direct impact is small. Its scale is very modest above all in comparison with the impact of our clients. And although it is their impact - the impact of our clients, independent companies whose boards take sovereign decisions - some of those management decisions are nevertheless taken as a result of, or in line with, our recommendations. That is why we identify a series of indirect impacts, exerted through our clients and connected with our advisory work.
We believe that measuring and presenting the impacts the consulting industry contributes to through its clients is an important issue, and one that has so far been largely overlooked. There are no settled, widely used frameworks or standards on the market for measuring this impact. We hope the MATERIALITY report will contribute to a discussion on the subject and that other advisers will join in. We are aware that the indirect impact metrics we have put in our report are fairly simple and unrefined. We will be working on developing them over the coming months. We are also counting on hearing from others - not only advisers, but clients and other stakeholders too.
What we certainly do not accept is the "but this simply cannot be measured" attitude. People used to say that about greenhouse gas emissions, about the gender pay gap, about how circular a company's business is - today all of it is covered by precise metrics. The same will happen with the impact of advisory firms. Along the way we will have to find answers to a number of questions, for example:
- To what extent can the impact on how a given metric develops at a client be attributed to one or more advisers who worked with that client in successive years?
- How should we measure an adviser's impact on internal changes within a client's organisation that have not yet materialised in actions towards people or the environment, but that build the basis for future change?
- What share of the impact can be attributed to changes in regulation, to market conditions, to business partners' requirements, to advice, and to changes in the competencies of the company's employees and management?
I have no idea today how to answer these questions. But I am very curious about the discussion that will lead us to those answers 😊
For those interested in the "behind the scenes" of how our report was created, I also have some concrete figures. Preparing it took six people (myself, Justyna Biernacka, Lena Chabros, Edyta Mantorska, Jakub Góral and Marlena Lis-Błaszczak) a combined 272 hours of work over two months. That means the report took each of them an average of 13.5% of their full-time working hours (the average says little, as one person worked 20 hours in total and another as much as 108). Gathering the data and calculating the metrics took 20% of our time, writing the content 48%, and layout design, comments and corrections 28%. And the materiality assessment? Just 3.7% of the total. That was possible thanks to the revised ESRS, which have significantly simplified the process. We also estimate that the next report will be roughly half as labour-intensive.
Once again, I encourage you to read the MATERIALITY Report. If you have questions about it or would like to share your reflections, please do get in touch 😊
P.S. Entries are still open for the Sustainability Reports competition organised by the Responsible Business Forum. FOB has extended the submission deadline, which now falls on Sunday, 13 September 2026.
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