James Fisher conducted a rigorous materiality assessment during 2021 to determine areas of greatest importance for our business and our stakeholders.

This extensive assessment involved internal and external stakeholder engagement and utilised a leading-edge big data platform to consolidate stakeholder feedback, analyse the data and develop the James Fisher materiality matrix

The assessment was conducted in three phases:

1. Issue identification – we created a long list of current and emerging issues relevant to James Fisher from publicly available sources (e.g., industry publications, Sustainable Development Goals, Global Reporting Initiative guidelines and competitor/peer sustainability reports) and internal sources (e.g., risk register, staff survey, customer research).
2. Stakeholder validation – we interviewed a range of representative external stakeholders and key management and decision-makers from James Fisher operating companies to review the list of issues.
3. Issue prioritisation – we analysed the stakeholder feedback and used a big data platform to produce the final list of 17 overarching issues and the materiality matrix, ranking and cross-referencing each against importance to external stakeholders as well as importance to James Fisher.

The materiality matrix has been validated and approved by the Board, with nine issues highlighted as priority areas of focus for James Fisher

17 issues were identified and prioritised during the materiality assessment, which were ranked and cross-referenced against their importance to external stakeholders verses their importance to James Fisher.

A final list of nine key priorities were selected as high importance to our stakeholders and ourselves, which informed our sustainability strategy.

These nine priorities have been mapped across our sustainability strategy's three pillars - People, Planet, and Partnership - progressing from foundational to transformational based on maturity and strategic impact.