Welcome to The Crown Estate
Material issues
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Our adoption of integrated reporting has required us to asses the business issues that are material to the success of our business. Although sustainability runs through all 14 of the issues we identified, five can be singled out as particularly relevant; the effect of climate change, maintaining effective stewardship, the availability of natural resources, successful placemaking and creating amenity value and health and safety. As we integrate our approach, we are now reporting information on our employees under the 'Our People' section of our website.
How we identified what was material
Working with specialist advisers we designed a structural process for identifying the material issues which could potentially impact our ability to deliver on our core objectives. What is material is defined as an issue that would impact our Board and committee decisions. Each issue was scored on a scale of 1-5 across three areas, namely:
- its economic impact on our business
- the degree to which our primary stakeholders are concerned with it; and
- the extent to which it is likely to grow in significance and impact in the future.
The scoring identified 14 material issues which underpin our business. We articulated why each issue is important to our success and whether it is an operating essential, enabler or differentiator to our future business.
Identifying the most material issues enables us to focus our management time and attention where it really matters most and thereby drive business growth which, at its core, is sustainable in the short, medium and long term.
