Abstract
This work aims to analyse the concept of “materiality” that features the stakeholder engagement process and the implementation of sustainability strategies and nonfinancial disclosure. Following the materiality principle, The Global Sustainability Standards Board states that nonfinancial disclosure must address social and environmental matters that affect the assessments and behaviour of stakeholders. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate, under the lenses of Stakeholder and Legitimacy Theory, how environmental sustainability concept may be defined by stakeholders of an Italian water provider. In detail, the responses of 246 stakeholders were collected through the use of a Q-methodology survey specifically designed to gather their understanding of environmental sustainability issues related to water management. More specifically, a Q-Methodology is a combined qualitative and quantitative approach that provides repeatable steps to prompt the social views of stakeholders on a range of issues that directly affect the effectiveness of environmental policy making and management. In reaching stakeholders, we considered young generations as well through a range of ages of respondents from 14 to 79 years old. To the best of our knowledge and after an analysis of the current literature a materiality assessment, through the use of Q-methodology with stakeholders of a water provider has not been developed. The analysis of the responses conducted to identify four different clusters of respondents: “environmental activists”, “workers centred”, “customers first” and “W&W – Water & Work”. These groups embody four different understandings concerning sustainability in water management.