Sustinvest, an ESG data analysis firm, said on the 28th that it held the "1st financial materiality forum."
The forum was held on the 27th at Leaders Hall in the Korea Institute of Financial Investment's education center in Yeouido, Seoul. The event was organized to reexamine the value of "financial materiality," which has emerged as a core concept linking corporate disclosures and investors amid the rapid changes in the ESG disclosure environment.
About 100 participants, including corporations and institutional investors and consulting officials, attended the event.
In congratulatory remarks, Ryu Young-jae, CEO of Sustinvest, said, "ESG investment and ESG management will ultimately spread when they lead to improved financial performance," adding, "ESG is not an ideology or an environmental movement but a future strategy necessary for the sustained prosperity of Korea's corporations."
Co-CEO Oh Seung-jae then delivered a keynote speech on the theme, "Why do all disclosure standards require financial materiality?"
Oh discussed the meaning of financial materiality, which IFRS and ESRS disclosure standards commonly require, and noted that improving domestic disclosure practices is important for both corporations and investors.
Choi Bo-kyung, a senior researcher at Sustinvest and the first presenter, gave a presentation on "the investability of corporate ESG performance."
Presenting the results of an investment strategy analysis using domestic ESG performance data, Choi explained, "An investment strategy that additionally considers indicators with high financial materiality showed better performance than strategies that considered only ESG ratings, not only on the KOSPI."
Choi added that the results "show that identifying financially meaningful ESG factors and managing them systematically can contribute to generating excess returns for investors and mitigating risk."
Ahn Hong-ik, a special committee member on ESG at the Korean Bar Association and head of the ESG Center at law firm Baekkyung, gave a presentation on "financial materiality from the perspective of legal risk."
Ahn explained the legal risk factors related to disclosures that corporations will face under mandatory disclosure standards to be introduced soon. Ahn emphasized, "Financial materiality disclosures are an important element that can be connected to corporations' legal liability."
After the presentations, a panel discussion was held with Co-CEO Oh as moderator. Participants included investor-side representatives Choi Yong-hwan, Head of Team at NH-Amundi Asset Management, and Cho Dae-hyun, Korea head at AIGCC, along with Kim Kyung-bae, a senior member at the Korean Standards Association in charge of ESG consulting and assurance. They offered diverse expert views on the sustainability mandatory disclosure system to be introduced in Korea and on financial materiality.
In particular, from the investor perspective, the view was presented that "the quality of risk response strategies is more important than a corporation's ESG score itself," along with the outlook that "data-based financial materiality assessments will, in the long term, enhance the credibility of disclosures."
In addition, Sustinvest announced that it will distribute a "2025 financial materiality map" that corporations can refer to in conducting financial materiality assessments.
The map is a tool that systematizes financially material, industry-specific ESG issues in Korea and is characterized by reflecting the particularities of domestic investors that SASB has not captured.
The 2026 financial materiality map for next year's disclosures will be updated soon and can be obtained upon separate request to Sustinvest.