Double Materiality Assessment Consultant: What to Buy

You have decided not to run the double materiality assessment alone. The question is now what to put in the brief, and how to tell a defensible deliverable from a good workshop.

This is a buyer's guide. It does not explain how an assessment is done; for that, read our double materiality assessment guide. It covers what to ask for, what to refuse, and what you must still own when the consultant leaves.

What You Are Actually Buying

Two different things get sold under the same name.

Workshops. A facilitator, a stakeholder session, a materiality matrix and a slide deck. Useful for alignment, and easy to deliver in a week.

A defensible file. The documented chain from your value chain and stakeholder input to the list of material topics, written so that someone who was not in the room can follow it. This is what the assurance provider reads first, and it is the part most buyers cannot judge when they sign.

Buy the second. The workshops are a means to it. If a proposal prices sessions and says little about documentation, you are being sold the cheaper half.

What a DMA Scope Must Include

A scope you can hold a supplier to names each of these, with a deliverable against each:

• The universe of topics and the value-chain boundary. Which sustainability matters were considered, and why the boundary is where it is.
• The scoring method. How impact and financial materiality are each rated, by whom, on what evidence.
• Thresholds. The cut-off for "material", and the reasoning for it. A threshold chosen after seeing the results is a flag.
• Stakeholder evidence. Who was consulted, how they were chosen and what they said. See our stakeholder engagement guide for what counts.
• Mapping to ESRS datapoints. Material topics linked to the disclosure requirements they trigger, so the assessment feeds the report rather than sitting beside it.

If one of the five is missing, ask who will do it. The answer is usually you, late.

Deliverables to Demand

Ask for the files, not the findings. At handover you should hold:

1. The assessment methodology, written as a procedure someone else could repeat.
2. The long list and short list of topics, with the reason each was kept or dropped.
3. The scoring workbook with every rating, the rater and the source.
4. Stakeholder records: list, selection logic, interview or survey notes.
5. The threshold decision and who approved it.
6. The datapoint map from material topics to ESRS requirements.
7. A short change log, so next year's update starts from this year's file.

Our pre-assurance guide shows how an assurer reads this set. If you could not hand all seven over tomorrow, the project is not finished.

What Stays With You

Some parts should not be outsourced, even to a good adviser.

• The stakeholder list. You know who matters to your business. A consultant can structure it, but they should not invent it.
• Judgement calls on thresholds and borderline topics. The consultant recommends; you decide, and the decision is recorded as yours.
• Board or management sign-off. Governance cannot be delegated, and an assurer will look for it.
• The files themselves. Ownership and reuse go in the contract, and so does access to anything held in the consultant's systems.

Price and Timing

We do not repeat fee ranges here. They are in our CSRD consultant costs guide, with what pushes them up or down.

What this guide adds is what a fair price should buy: the full file set above, your sign-off meetings and a first-year update path. When you compare quotes, line them up on deliverables first and price second. Our proposal comparison guide shows how to do that without being misled by day rates.

On timing, ask for a dated plan that includes your own tasks. Most delays sit with stakeholder access and sign-off, not with the adviser.

Red Flags in a DMA Proposal

• Workshops priced, documentation vague. The cheaper half is on offer.
• A fixed outcome promised before any scoring. The assessment is meant to find the answer.
• Methodology inside a proprietary tool. You lose it when you stop paying.
• No mention of the assurance provider. The deliverable is built for them.
• The assessment and the assurance offered by the same firm. Independence rules make this a problem; the pre-assurance guide above explains why.
• No client tasks in the plan. Someone has not planned the project.

Before you sign, put the questions to ask a CSRD consultant to each bidder. Their answers on documentation are the ones to compare.

Where to Find One

Our directory lists consultants with double materiality, ESRS gap analysis and assurance experience. Check each profile for actual assessments completed in your sector, and ask for a reference from a client who has been through assurance.

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