Non-financial Disclosure and Materiality: Exploring the Role of CFOs

In the last few decades, the growing attention to corporate sustainability along the three pillars of environmental, social, and economic sustainabilityhas brought non-financial disclosure (NFD) into widespread use. Materiality is a multifaceted concept which originates from the field of financial accounting and auditing and generally refers to the need to provide relevant information to users of corporate reporting. The empirical research specifically devoted to the application of the materiality principle in non-financial information disclosure has focused on analyzing the extent to which companies disclose material non financial information, the internal and external factors that infuence the quantity and quality of material non financial information and whether the application of different reporting frameworks leads to prioritizing different material topics. This chapter explores, through a case analysis of two Italian listed companies issuing sustainability reports, how the materiality determination process takes place by engaging the organizational actors involved in this process with a particular focus on the role of the CFO/controller.