| Course | CSR 5003 Principles and Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 2 |
| Paper type | Stakeholder and materiality assessment |
| Length | 1,170 words, about 4 pages plus title and reference pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | American College of Education |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for CSR 5003 Module 2
Eleven Stakeholders, Seven Topics, Four That Matter: A Stakeholder Map and Double Materiality Assessment for a Chocolate Maker
Student Name
American College of Education
CSR5003: Principles and Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility
Module 2 Assignment
Instructor Name
July 10, 2028
Why Map Before Choosing
Module 1 concluded that Marrow Creek Confections, a composite chocolate maker with about $420 million in sales, owes the families in its cocoa supply chain due diligence, support for remediation and honest reporting. Child labor, however, is only one of many claims on the company. Before deciding where to put its limited attention, the company needs to know who has claims on it, which claims are strongest and which issues matter most, both to the people affected and to the company's own performance. A company that responds to whichever stakeholder is loudest will spend its effort on the wrong things. Materiality is the discipline of deciding what not to work on.
Mapping the Stakeholders
The team identified eleven groups: the controlling family shareholders; the company's 610 employees; its largest retail customer and other retailers; consumers; the two cocoa trading houses; farmer cooperatives in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana; cocoa-farming families, including children; the cocoa regulators and governments of the two producing countries; nongovernmental organizations working on child labor and deforestation; the company's lenders; and the Pennsylvania community around its factory. Mitchell et al. (1997) proposed that a stakeholder's salience to managers depends on three attributes: power to influence the firm, legitimacy of the relationship and urgency of the claim. Groups with all three are definitive stakeholders whose claims managers must address.
Applied to Marrow Creek, the largest retailer is definitive: it has power through its purchasing, a legitimate relationship and an urgent claim with a deadline. The family shareholders and lenders have power and legitimacy. Cocoa-farming families have high legitimacy and urgency but almost no power over the company, which the model classifies as dependent stakeholders who rely on others, such as nongovernmental organizations, the retailer or governments, to advocate for them. The model's value here is that it explains why the families' claim has gone unanswered for years and why the retailer's requirement has suddenly made it salient: power has been added to a claim that was already legitimate and urgent.
Double Materiality
The company assessed topics on two dimensions. Impact materiality asks how significant the company's actual and potential effects on people and the environment are, which is the approach of the Global Reporting Initiative's standard on material topics (Global Reporting Initiative [GRI], 2021). Financial materiality asks how much a topic could affect the company's revenue, costs, access to capital or value. Evidence suggests the distinction matters for performance. Khan et al. (2016) found that firms with good ratings on sustainability issues that are material to their industry outperformed firms with poor ratings on those issues, while good performance on immaterial issues did not produce the same advantage. Attention spent on the right issues pays; attention spread evenly does not.
A group of managers rated seven candidate topics on both dimensions, using a five-point scale, informed by interviews with the retailer, one trading house, two nongovernmental organizations and an employee committee. A topic scoring 4 or higher on either dimension is treated as material.
The Seven Topics
Child labor and human rights in cocoa scored 5 for impact and 4 for financial materiality, the latter because of the retailer's requirement and tightening due diligence laws in export markets. Deforestation linked to cocoa scored 5 for impact, because cocoa expansion has been a driver of forest loss in West Africa, and 4 financially, because about 12 percent of Marrow Creek's sales are to the European Union, whose deforestation regulation requires companies placing cocoa products on its market to show that they were not produced on land deforested after 2020 (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2023). Farmer income scored 5 for impact, since low income underlies both child labor and forest clearing, and 3 financially. Sugar content and consumer health scored 3 and 3. Packaging waste scored 2 for impact and 3 financially, given retailer packaging targets. Emissions from the Pennsylvania factory scored 2 and 2, and workplace safety in the factory scored 3 and 4, because an injury could halt production and the company's safety record is already monitored by its insurers.
Four topics are therefore material: child labor and human rights, deforestation, farmer income and workplace safety. The first three are interconnected, all rooted in the economics of smallholder cocoa, and they will be addressed together in the next module's supply chain analysis. Workplace safety is material for a different reason and is managed through the company's existing safety program.
The Judgment Involved
The scores are judgments, and the paper does not pretend otherwise. Farmer income could reasonably have scored 4 financially, since a price crisis that drives farmers out of cocoa could threaten supply. Sugar and health could rise if a major market adopts taxes or labeling rules. The assessment will be repeated every two years and whenever a major stakeholder raises a new claim. Its purpose is not to produce a permanent list but to force the company to decide, with reasons it can explain, where to concentrate. The decision leaves some legitimate claims, such as packaging waste, below the threshold. That does not mean they are ignored; it means they are managed through ordinary operations rather than given strategic priority, and the company should be able to say so publicly.
Engaging Each Group
The map also determines how the company engages each group, since the same approach does not fit all of them. The retailer, a definitive stakeholder, will receive a formal plan with dates and quarterly progress reports, and a named executive will own the relationship. The family shareholders and lenders will see the material topics and their costs in the board's annual strategy review, because the program will draw on the company's capital. The two trading houses, whose cooperation is necessary for any traceability, will be engaged through the purchasing contracts themselves, with requirements for origin data and support for monitoring written into the next contract renewal.
Cocoa-farming families, as dependent stakeholders, cannot be engaged directly by a company that buys through traders, and it would be misleading to claim otherwise. Their interests will be represented through the cooperatives that the traders' programs work with, through nongovernmental organizations with field presence and through farmer interviews commissioned as part of independent verification. The company will ask the traders to share the results of any farmer surveys conducted in the cooperatives that supply it. Employees will be engaged through the existing employee committee, which raised workplace safety during the interviews and will review the safety program's annual results. The Pennsylvania community, whose main concerns are jobs and factory traffic, will continue to be engaged through the plant manager's regular community meetings. Each channel has an owner, so that the next materiality assessment can draw on what the company actually heard rather than on managers' assumptions.
The results will be published in the company's first sustainability report, with the scores and the reasoning for each, so that stakeholders who disagree can say so.
References
European Parliament and Council of the European Union. (2023). Regulation (EU) 2023/1115 on the making available on the Union market and the export from the Union of certain commodities and products associated with deforestation and forest degradation. Official Journal of the European Union, L 150, 206-247.
Global Reporting Initiative. (2021). GRI 3: Material topics 2021. GRI.
Khan, M., Serafeim, G., & Yoon, A. (2016). Corporate sustainability: First evidence on materiality. The Accounting Review, 91(6), 1697-1724. https://doi.org/10.2308/accr-51383
Mitchell, R. K., Agle, B. R., & Wood, D. J. (1997). Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), 853-886. https://doi.org/10.2307/259247
Reading the CSR 5003 Module 2 instructions
In CSR 5003, Module 2 typically asks you to identify a company's stakeholders and decide which sustainability topics are material. Expect a stakeholder map with a method, a definition of materiality from a recognized standard, candidate topics scored with reasons, the material topics selected, an acknowledgment of the judgment involved and a plan to engage stakeholders. Many sections now ask for double materiality. A materiality assessment usually fills five pages with a matrix or table. The CSR 5003 Canvas page notes the standard to use, GRI, ESRS or SASB, and whether the company must continue from Module 1. Give every score a reason tied to evidence, so the matrix can be defended.
Inside the CSR 5003 Module 2 example
The assessment begins by explaining why mapping first protects against choosing topics the company already wanted to report. The stakeholder section names eleven groups, from cocoa farmers and cooperatives to retailers, regulators and local communities, and uses the salience model to explain why farmers have strong claims but little power. The materiality section defines impact and financial materiality from the European standard and the GRI. The topics section scores each of seven candidates on both dimensions with a reason for each score, such as a coming regulation or the scale of harm, and selects four: child labor, deforestation, farmer income and climate. A section admits where scores required judgment and how it was checked. The engagement section plans how and how often to engage each group.
CSR 5003 Module 2 rubric: what full marks look like
Materiality papers are graded on method and justification. Mapping credit requires a stakeholder list built with a recognized model, with dynamics explained. Definition marks reward double materiality defined from a standard. The scoring row usually carries the most weight: every topic scored on both dimensions with a reason tied to evidence. Graders give credit for admitting judgment and showing how it was checked. Engagement marks go to plans tailored to each group. A matrix or table and APA 7, including the standards cited correctly, close out the rubric. Reviewers also reward noticing stakeholders with strong claims but little power, since they are easily left off.
CSR 5003 Module 2 help from the desk
Materiality papers most often list every sustainability topic as material. Scores given without reasons are another frequent weakness. Students also confuse financial materiality with impact. Map stakeholders first. Define both dimensions. Score every topic with a reason. Choose a small number of material topics. Admit where judgment entered. Plan engagement that reaches farmers, not only investors. If your company is a hospital, a bank or an apparel brand, the desk can write a materiality assessment for it. Check that farmers and cooperatives are scored by people who have heard from them, not only by head office staff. Note the source for every regulation you cite as a financial driver.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official American College of Education document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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CSR 5003 Module 2 questions, answered
What does CSR5003 Module 2 usually ask for?
CSR5003 Module 2 typically asks students to identify and prioritize a company's stakeholders and decide which social and environmental issues are material. Many sections expect a stakeholder map and a materiality matrix with justification. Your classroom's instructions decide the frameworks.
What is double materiality?
Double materiality assesses topics on two dimensions: the company's impact on people and the environment, and the topic's financial effect on the company. A topic can be material on either dimension, which widens the view beyond purely financial risk.
How do I justify materiality scores?
Give each score a reason tied to evidence, such as a regulation, a customer requirement or the scale of impact, and say where the judgment could reasonably differ. Materiality is a decision, and showing the reasoning is more important than precise numbers.
Where can I find a free CSR 5003 Module 2 sample paper?
Above, free: the stakeholder and materiality assessment for CSR 5003 Module 2, organized as "Why Map Before Choosing", "The Seven Topics" and "Engaging Each Group".
What is the GRI standard for material topics?
GRI 3: Material Topics 2021 explains how an organization identifies its significant impacts on the economy, environment and people and decides which topics to report.