Our Responsible Capital Disclosure Assistant product uses Retrieval Augmented Generation to enable lenders and investors to analyse portfolio companies and their investment universe when performing ESG Assessments at scale for comprehensive frameworks such as TNFD. Structured datasets constructed using our toolkit can be used to rank and score companies and to develop bespoke internal ESG ratings if desired.

Materiality was again in the spotlight recently with launch of IFRS sustainability disclosure standards S1 & S2. Whilst the standards were generally welcomed as a significant step in creating a global baseline for corporate sustainability disclosures grounded in the best practices of accounting standards it was seen as controversial in some quarters. In a large part this was due to its approach to dealing with materiality and more specifically ‘double materiality’ — something largely avoided in the standards according to critics. Proponents highlight the mantra that “what can be measured can be managed” when suggesting that focusing on single materiality / materiality should be the priority for disclosing organisations and is thus the focus of these standards. Double materiality encompasses not just sustainability risks which impact a company’s financial performance but the degree to which that company’s products and activities impact the wider world — a philosophy more adopted in European standards such as in the work of EFRAG.

Technological innovations will be key to ensuring 'early adopter' TNFD reporting companies provide useful nature-related information.