Double Materiality in Action: Challenges for Preparers and Users

Call for Papers

Double Materiality in Action: Challenges for Preparers and Users

JOURNAL NAME: Meditari Accountancy Research

PUBLISHER: Emerald Publishing

SUBMISSIONS OPEN: 1 November 2026

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 31 January 2027

About This Special Issue

Sustainability reporting has moved from aspiration to obligation across many jurisdictions, yet materiality remains a contested terrain. As organisations transition from voluntary disclosures to more standardised regimes — including the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and European Sustainability Reporting Standards in the EU, and International Sustainability Standards Board standards globally — enduring tensions surface between impact and financially oriented views, transparency and information overload, and genuine accountability versus image-enhancing disclosure. Materiality determinations now shape not only what is reported, but how organisations prioritise issues, allocate resources, engage stakeholders, and undergo assurance.

The CSRD, in force since January 2023, marks a groundbreaking step toward standardising sustainability reporting practices. One of its key innovations is the introduction of the double materiality principle, which integrates two perspectives. Impact materiality considers the effects of a company's activities on people and the environment over the short, medium, or long term — an inside-out perspective. Financial materiality focuses on the impacts of sustainability issues on the company's financial position — an outside-in perspective.

Heterogeneous definitions of the materiality principle create challenges not only for preparers but also for external users such as auditors, investors, and stakeholders. Investors tend to prefer sustainability disclosures that reveal the potential impact of environmental and social issues on firm performance, while other stakeholders seek information evidencing the impacts of firm operations on society and the global ecosystem. Earlier evidence has shown that companies are struggling with double materiality assessments — some adopting data-driven approaches, others continuing to rely on judgement-based methods.

This special issue invites contributions that interrogate and advance the theory and practice of double materiality in sustainability reporting. Both theoretical and empirical studies employing quantitative and qualitative methods are welcome.

Scope & Theme Areas

We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Double Materiality in Practice — Governance, processes, and decision rules for integrating impact and financial perspectives

• Stakeholder Salience and Engagement Quality — Methods for identifying, ranking, and validating material topics

• Role of Internal Experts and Stakeholders — Evidentiary input of internal experts and stakeholders in double materiality assessments

• Framework Comparisons — GRI, ESRS, and ISSB: areas of convergence and divergence, and consequences for consistency and comparability

• Decision-Usefulness versus Information Overload — Designing concise, relevant, and verifiable disclosures and metrics

• Digital Enablers — Data analytics and AI for topic mapping, materiality matrices, value-chain tracing, and assurance processes

• Governance and Incentives — Board oversight, sustainability committees, remuneration links, and internal control systems shaping materiality outcomes

Guest Editors

Salvatore Principale University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy ✉️ salvatore.principale@uniroma1.it

Giuseppe Nicolò University of Salerno, Italy ✉️ gnicolo@unisa.it

Rosa Lombardi University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy ✉️ rosa.lombardi@uniroma1.it

Joanna Krasodomska Krakow University of Economics, Poland ✉️ jkrasodo@uek.krakow.pl

Key Deadlines & Dates

Submission Guidelines

How to submit: Manuscripts must be submitted via ScholarOne Manuscripts, strictly following the journal's author guidelines.

Selection step: Authors must select the special issue title from the drop-down menu at the appropriate submission step — in response to "Please select the issue you are submitting to."

Eligibility: Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication elsewhere while under review for this journal.

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