1.7. Materiality analysis

Considering the internal sustainability management structure, the responsibility for the sustainability reporting and transparency in qualitative and quantitative data is coordinated each year by the Sustainability Director. After the integration of data and development of the sustainability report, the CEO (the highest governance body) approves the final form of the report, after verification and review of its alignment with the sustainability strategy.

Since 2021 when we developed the Sustainability Strategy for Autonom we have focused on identifying and analysing material topics relevant to our work. We carry out this analysis year after year by carefully analysing our activities and the added value in our value chain considering a careful analysis on risks and opportunities. The analysis was conducted considering the value chain and the extent of our interactions with different stakeholders as well as the relevant material issues or topics at each stage in the chain. We reflected on the impact our business has on the environment and society but also what could be the influences coming from outside that could affect our business financially from a business relevance perspective. It was very important to identify those topics on which we focus our processes in the sustainability management system but also the operational strategy for effective control and monitoring of operational indicators through specific processes to prevent negative impacts.

For the first time we are doing an exercise in double materiality analysis. For this process the consultation part of the internal and external stakeholder consultation is a defining part in the development of the materiality matrix both from the internal perspective of management’s position on key issues and from the perspective and view of other internal and external stakeholders. Also, in order to apply the perspective of the impact of the external environment on the business we conducted interviews with internal management but also with external managers of the organisation (from the customer group).

With the annual review of the list of material topics, for the 2022 activities, synergistic issues were identified from an operational perspective with potential impact that we wanted to aggregate so we defined the new topic “Resource Management” where we agreed to address the energy and fuel issues used for the company’s own fleet. We also renamed last year’s topic “Waste & Hazardous Materials Management” to “Waste & Hazardous Materials”. We have introduced for this year’s analysis, evaluation and presentation a new but relevant material topic for our business, namely “Economic Performance”.

The material themes relevant to the company are:

The materiality analysis methodology followed the concept of double materiality, the quantitative assessment of Autonom material issues considering:

• relevance to the business – outside-in perspective
• social and environmental impact of the organisation in the community – inside-out perspective

Each material topic (of the 15 material topics) has an economic impact on the company (business relevance dimension) and an impact on the environment and society (community impact dimension), and explanations of the different types of impacts on economic, social and environmental factors are provided in this report for each material topic in separate chapters.

The concept of double materiality was integrated into the stakeholder consultation process, for which we used three stakeholder engagement methods:

To conclude the report and focus our efforts to be transparent and responsive to our stakeholders’ recommendations in January – February 2023 we launched the questionnaire to all our stakeholders and in March 2023 we conducted five interviews with people from Autonom’s management and one interview with the manager of a company from our customer stakeholder group. The questionnaire consultation was conducted with stakeholders from Romania and other countries. The interviews were conducted by our consultants to create impartiality on the facilitation but also to be able to capture very well the aspects with great influence on the business, namely opportunities and risks.

A total of 391 responses were aggregated and evaluated. The split of responses is balanced INTERN/EXTERNAL. It can be seen that a large proportion of respondents are internal stakeholders (employees) but this is explained by the fact that their number is much higher. The large number of responses from employees is good for us because they have contributed to our important journey in sustainability performance reporting and definition of important new actions. We are also grateful that people from all key Autonom stakeholder groups responded to our survey requests.

The final quantification and evaluation of the results and the definition of the double materiality matrix considered certain limitations according to the stakeholder mapping results.

Recommendations from our stakeholders throughout the survey are highlighted in the chapter “Our engagement and relationship with stakeholders”.

Materiality Matrix

The results of the consultation process through questionnaires and interviews helped us to define the materiality matrix but also to highlight a list of risks and opportunities.

Delineation of the material topics on which reporting and disclosure focused was done from two perspectives:

• the potential size of the impact in the community (environment and social), their control and management
• relevance to the business and highlighting the potential impact on financial capital of those material issues that bring more risks than opportunities if not managed in a balanced and compliant way at business level

The limits of material issues

Note:

AUT – include Autonom employees, Management, Shareholders

IARB – include investors, analysts and bank representatives

F – include commercial service providers, utilities, waste management and material suppliers

C – Customers

AUP – Public authorities

NGO – Non-governmental organisations

U – Universities, educational institutions

M – Media – Press

V – Neighbours

PS – Space owner

ALT – other categories

Interpretation of results

Relevance to business

The quantification of the business relevance of each material issue was determined using data collected in one-on-one interviews, which provided information on opportunities and risks for each material issue.

Impact of the organisation in the community

Quantification of the organisation’s impact on the community considered the positive and negative impact generated by each material aspect on environmental and social factors, using as input the ratings given by stakeholders in the online questionnaire.

The matrix shows the importance of material topics for stakeholders from a stakeholder decision-making perspective and highlights those material topics that may have an impact on the environment or society.

Throughout the interviews we identified risks and opportunities which we detail below. These are well known internally, and processes are in place to address them. Opportunities will always find a very high share in being addressed quickly and risks are mitigated by various actions to prevent negative effects or undesirable financial impact.