By Louis D Coppola @ G&A Institute..
Convetit Embeds Materiality Mapping Tool Into Virtual Stakeholder Engagement ThinkTanks
G&A Institute Data Sets Available As Important Element of the Tool
As corporate managers transition from the GRI 3.1 framework to G4, they may experience daunting challenges.  One important consideration for report creators:  the critical GRI G4 requirement of engaging stakeholders to determine materiality for corporate sustainability reporting.
Enter Convetit, a new online stakeholder engagement platform, which has added a turnkey solution a Materiality Mapping Tool that embeds an interactive matrix into virtual “ThinkTanks”. This tool  can be used to engage with stakeholders to plot material issues on a dual-axis grid weighing significance to stakeholders against business impact that can then be exported for integration into corporate sustainability reports.
Explains Convetit Co-Founder / CEO Tom O’Malley:  “Convetit ThinkTanks introduce a new, more efficient and effective practice of interacting with key stakeholders at their convenience across time zones. globally, over a matter of days in asynchronous dialogues.  This enables companies to collaboratively identify, prioritize, validate, and review their material sustainability issues with our Materiality Mapping Tool.”
Advantage: Convetit ThinkTanks are designed to help companies save on the cost, calendaring, and carbon associated with traditional real-time engagement – such as in-person meetings, conference calls, and webinars.  This approach empowers companies and stakeholders to integrate meaningful, in-depth dialogue into their regular routines.
G&A Institute Collaboration:  To help jumpstart materiality determinations, Convetit pre-loaded templates of the top 15 material GRI aspects (each representing an issue) in each of 35 sectors based on research of more than 1,200 GRI sustainability reports by the Governance & Accountability Institute for its report, Sustainability – What Matters.
Notes Governance & Accountability Institute Executive Vice President Lou Coppola:
“Our Sustainability – What Matters research makes for a perfect starting point for Convetit’s Materiality Mapping tool.  If your sector or industry or investment peer companies consider the 15 GRI aspects we found most often in the 1,200-plus surveyed sustainability reports to be the most worthy for their reporting, then it only makes sense to see if your stakeholders agree that these are your company’s most material issues…or not.”
Convetit’s business model is fueled by the corporate sustainability field’s longstanding practices of Stakeholder Engagement and Materiality – which are increasingly coming into sharper focus and converging.
In addition to GRI G4’s enhanced attention on these two interrelated practices, the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) includes both Materiality and Stakeholder Relationships as Guiding Principles.
Adds Convetit Co-Founder and Chief Engagement Architect Bill Baue: “The increasing alignment between GRI, and IIRC around the core practices of stakeholder engagement and materiality enhances the demand for simple yet sophisticated platforms such as Convetit’s virtual ThinkTanks that embed our Materiality Mapping tool. Convetit ThinkTanks can augment or replace traditional stakeholder engagement, supplanting arms-length, tick-box surveys with direct, authentic interaction with key stakeholders over enough time for creative collaboration to emerge.”
About G&A Institute (www.ga-institute.com)
G&A Institute is a New York-based, private sector company providing sustainability-focused services and resources to corporate and investment community clients, including: Issue Counseling & Sustainability Strategies; Sustainability Reporting; Materiality Assessments; Stakeholder Engagement; Benchmarking; Investor Relations; Communications; Coaching, Team Building & Training;  Issues Monitoring & Customized Research; Third Party Recognitions.  G&A is the exclusive Data Partner for the GRI in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
About Convetit (convetit.com)
Convetit is a secure, agile platform for hosting meaningful dialogue over defined time periods (from days to weeks) in virtual ThinkTanks. These time-bound, asynchronous forums remove the logistical barriers of organizing and managing stakeholder engagement. Convetit’s facilitation tools enable you to convene stakeholders and thought leaders to vet issues and ideas — including material sustainability impacts — in discussion threads that augment (or even replace) real-time gatherings.
Contacts for information:
Tom O’Malley
Co-Founder & CEO, Convetit
tom@convetit.com
Bill Baue
Co-Founder & Chief Engagement Architect, Convetit
bbaue@verizon.net
Louis D. Coppola
Executive VP – Governance & Accountability Institute
Advisor to the Convetit team
lcoppola@ga-institute.com