Double materiality assessment for major housebuilder
Reassessing priorities to meet stakeholder needs and harmonise with industry benchmarks.
The Hill Group is an award-winning 5 star housebuilder, creating a range of beautiful homes for private sale and partnership projects across London, Cambridge and the South East.
Sustainability was already a core part of the business operations, culture, and targets when Hill contacted Rawstone Consulting. They wanted help to reassess the company’s environmental, social, and governance (‘ESG’) priorities and ensure they were aligned with changing stakeholder, best practice, and legislative expectations. As experts in sustainability for the housebuilding industry, Rawstone were appointed to conduct this analysis through a double materiality assessment.
Key highlights from the project were as follows:
In depth desktop review of ESG relevant legislation, best practice, and peer approaches to identify an exhaustive list of potentially significant ESG issues and themes.
Survey analysis of 446 stakeholders from 6 key stakeholder groups to assess the impact that Hill could have on an ESG issue, and the impact that ESG issues could have on Hill’s financial performance.
Quantitative assessment of the significance of ESG issues to produce an ESG materiality matrix in accordance with Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) best practice.
Analysis of the impact of gender, age, and role on perceived ESG priorities.
Qualitative analysis of survey feedback to provide additional insight and quotes for communication.
Recommendations for actions to address the priority ESG issues.
Working with Rawstone Consulting has provided us a transformative opportunity to re-evaluate our ESG priorities and reshape them in harmony with dynamic stakeholder demands and emerging industry benchmarks.
Andrew Day, Sustainability Director