On Monday 15 April, MAAS published its 3rd edition of the CSR report (Corporate Social Responsibility) for 2023. This report was compiled in terms of content and text by Kroll SR and is aligned with the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) standards, namely the ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards) and the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative).
The first two editions of the MAAS CSR report had already been compiled by Kroll SR in a GRI-compliant manner. For the third edition, full ESRS compliance was added. These CSRD reporting standards were officially published in December 2023, and on 15 April 2024 MAAS published its report. This makes MAAS one of the first companies in Europe with an ESRS-compliant report, underscoring MAAS’s role as a CSR frontrunner in the coffee and tea sector.
Kroll SR looks back on a successful collaboration with MAAS and a substantively strong report. The MAAS CSR report 2023 can be viewed on our website: https://krollsr.nl/referenties/. In this blog, you can read how this report was compiled.
Challenges
MAAS, together with Kroll SR, compiled the GRI- and ESRS-compliant report for 2023 in four months. In preparation, time was already saved because the GRI report structure was already available from the 2021 and 2022 reports. Additionally, those involved in the MAAS reporting team were already familiar with Kroll SR’s approach to compiling the report annually.
Nevertheless, the addition of the ESRS compared to the GRI brought additional challenges. The ESRS adds many new requirements in the form of qualitative information about governance, the business model and materiality topics in the areas of opportunities, risks, targets and policies. To a lesser extent, new data points were also added compared to the 2022 report.
The double materiality assessment was conducted at the level of the Miko Group (parent company). The impact analysis from the MAAS 2022 report was used as input.
Double Materiality Assessment
The most important component of ESRS reporting is the execution of the double materiality assessment and its outcomes. This analysis determines which ESG topics (Environmental, Social, Governance) are material for MAAS (i.e. significant or very important).
MAAS had already conducted its own GRI impact analysis with Kroll SR for the 2022 report. For the 2023 report, a double materiality assessment was conducted at the Miko Group level, also in collaboration with Kroll SR. The results of the MAAS 2022 impact analysis were incorporated. MAAS itself did not conduct any additional research for the 2023 report.
The Miko Group conducted a new and first full double materiality assessment for all companies in the group. The impact analysis was conducted among the primary stakeholders: employees, customers and suppliers. The financial analysis was conducted among the management. The financial analysis tested the opportunities and risks per ESG topic.
In the 2023 report, MAAS embraced the materiality results of the Miko Group and supplemented them with additional materiality topics. The topics elaborated as material in the MAAS 2023 report are:
The topics that were elaborated in the report, but not as material:
Elaboration
Based on the materiality topics, 1,680 ESRS data points were elaborated in the MAAS 2023 report. Of these, 978 data points are unique because the Minimum Disclosure Requirement (MDR) data points were elaborated repeatedly, per materiality topic. This can be seen in the ESRS index of the MAAS report from page 91. These data points come from 85 different Disclosure Requirements (DRs) and 10 different Standards.
For GRI, 332 unique data points were elaborated from 26 Disclosure Requirements and 26 Standards.
The qualitative and quantitative information was requested by Kroll SR through specially designed questionnaires, and the GRI and ESRS chapters were compiled using the answers, documents and datasets provided. These were then aligned with MAAS, internally validated multiple times and subsequently graphically consolidated in the final report.
Next step
Naturally, sustainability and CSR is a journey, and even in this MAAS CSR report there are still final steps to be taken in terms of content. Not all data points could be fully completed because not all policies, targets, measures or metrics are yet in place within the organisation. The ESRS is also new and only recently known to MAAS. These exceptions can be found in the ESRS index in the report.
These few missing elements surface from an overview such as this CSR report. They represent concrete action points for MAAS to make the final CSR impacts transparent and complete its policies in 2024. This is the reflective power of the CSRD and the ESRS, even for a CSR frontrunner like MAAS.
The MAAS CSR report 2023 can be viewed on our website: https://krollsr.nl/referenties/.
Want to learn more? Contact Kroll SR.
