Recently, I was on a call with a client. I could tell they were frustrated. Like me, they've watched Double Materiality Assessments evolve rapidly over the past several years, and they recognized the business value of updating theirs. But they couldn't get C-suite buy-in — or the budget — to work with us on a refreshed, more impactful DMA. Yet, their investors expect the company to fully understand and act on the impacts, risks, and opportunities they face, and a materiality assessment is the process to uncover those impacts, risks and opportunities that may have an outsized impact on business operations or finances.
This happens often. The sustainability bar rises, and companies that did the work relatively recently risk falling behind because leadership doesn't see the value in an update. The paradox: as expectations in our space evolve, it usually means more rigor — and more ROI. That's especially true of DMAs.
Over the past three or four years, DMA methodology has evolved substantially. Early assessments typically produced a list of material topics plotted on a grid. Today's methodology goes further, evaluating the impacts, risks, and opportunities (IROs) tied to each topic, including their scale, scope, likelihood and irremediable character.
Irremediable character matters because it changes how a company has to think about severity. Some negative impacts can be corrected. Others can't. A data breach that exposes customers' home addresses, for example, can't be undone. Current methodology asks companies to account for that distinction, not just log the topic and move on.
The result is a fundamentally more useful output: not a static list of material topics, but a strategic set of insights leadership can actually act on when setting the business direction and financial planning.
The world has changed significantly in the past two years — geopolitical factors, (war, tariffs), supply chain disruptions (eggs, oil, etc.), regulations (EPR, EUDR), technology (AI), and consumer spending habits, along with many other shifts with direct ties to business. A current materiality assessment will point to how each of these evolving factors has been explored for potential impact, risk and opportunity. A DMA built on a methodology from even three years ago was built to answer a narrower question than the one companies need answered today.
AI is the clearest example of how fast this moves. In 2023, AI-related risks showed up in fewer than 12% of corporate materiality assessments, according to the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. By 2024, the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report had elevated AI-related risks into the top tier of global concerns. Today, it's a pressing topic across nearly every sector. Companies working from an outdated DMA methodology weren't equipped to catch that shift as it happened.
The shift shows up clearly when you compare methodologies side by side. In 2021, climate change might have shown up on a DMA as a single material topic. In 2026, that same underlying issue shows up as a specific, actionable set of risks and opportunities.
Take a solar company, for example: the material topic isn't "climate change" but the specific opportunity presented by growing demand for clean energy across U.S. markets.
Or take a real example from our work with a large ski resort conglomerate. Instead of listing "climate change" as a material topic, updated methodology surfaces the specific risks tied to it: reduced snowpack, fewer skier visits, higher water costs from snowmaking, and water rights exposure.
The client on that call didn't need convincing that an updated DMA would be valuable but they did need a way to make the case internally. At thinkPARALLAX, our DMA refresh service is built around that reality. We don't ask organizations to redo their recent materiality assessment from scratch. We update it by reassessing IROs against current methodology, incorporating what's changed in the world since the last assessment, and giving leadership a business case for the investment.
The output isn't a new grid. It's a sharper set of strategic insights: what's changed, why it matters to the business, and what to do about it.
If your last DMA is starting to look out of date, treat that as your signal to move. Get in touch to talk through a DMA refresh.
Sheila Ongie is the Head of Strategy at thinkPARALLAX. With over two decades of sustainability experience spanning founder, in-house leader, and strategic consultant, Sheila brings both scientific rigor and entrepreneurial judgment to the challenges facing today's enterprises.