The Global Reporting Initiative Has Suggested Alternative Views of the Application

The Global Reporting Initiative has suggested alternative views of the application of the materiality concept in social and environmental accounting,including:

A) Materiality thresholds (e.g. 10 per cent) should be lowered in relation to social and environmental costs because of the difficulty in measuring them.
B) Liabilities for social and environmental costs should not be discounted before they are evaluated for materiality and therefore inclusion in the accounts.
C) Contingent liabilities related to environmental and social issues should be disclosed regardless of whether they are considered 'material' or not according to traditional financial accounting approaches to materiality measurement.
D) Materiality measures should reflect the nature and circumstances as well as the scale or magnitude of the item or event.