Pictet’s group-level double materiality assessment: a strategic step beyond CSRD compliance

Starting Point: Ensuring compliance before regulatory requirements

Pictet is a leading global asset manager with operations in the EU, meaning their certain branches need to comply with CSRD requirements. Rather than treating this as a mere compliance exercise, Pictet saw an opportunity to get ahead of future Swiss regulation and strengthen their reporting practices at group level.

“There were lots of things waiting to be discovered so we decided to consider this process as a journey,” says Yann Demont, Senior Impact Manager at Pictet. “We really see this as a collaboration for a long time and that's why choosing the right provider for CSRD double materiality was important.”

Pictet had already published their first group sustainability report ahead of the CSRD regulation in 2024 referring to the 2023 calendar year. While they could have limited their scope to just their EU entities, they recognised that a comprehensive group-wide approach would provide more value in the long term and carve out a strategic advantage for the future.

Solution: DMA for Pictet’s holdings and operations, all in one

The Upright Platform was a clear choice for Pictet for such an ambitious journey. The approach of combining both operational and portfolio materiality backed by a science-based methodology, the comprehensive coverage and the availability of the data on the online platform were factors that made Upright the right partner for Pictet.

"We basically had two options: assess tens of thousands of holdings one by one, or work with a data provider with great coverage, like Upright," Demont says.

What impressed Pictet about Upright was the science-backed methodology, based on Upright's analysis of 300+ million scientific articles and publications. Knowing this, Pictet felt secure in their choice of data provider as there was a solid backing for a fact-based quantitative approach. Moreover, the extensive methodology documentation ensured the assessment was audit-ready.

"Furthermore, we can always see the up-to-date results on the Upright Platform. That makes it super helpful," Demont shares.

Upright's off-the-shelf coverage of Pictet's portfolio was excellent: existing analyses already covered almost 90% of the relevant equity and bond universe, making the work a smooth process. The collaboration also demonstrated Upright's unique capacity to conduct DMAs for an entire investment universe of tens of thousands of companies.

Results: A transformed way for Pictet to look at materiality data

Pictet now has a completed assessment for their CSRD reporting requirements – but the benefits don't end there. Demont shares that the process will help Pictet more closely integrate financial and non-financial data together.

"All this infrastructure that we have built around assessing materiality with Upright's help will be used for much more than just CSRD," Demont explains. "Also, the whole DMA process has strengthened links between the group's offices, too."

Pictet now has the foundation for finalising the list of ESRS disclosure requirements they need to report against and also to go further into assessing the impact of their entire portfolio.

"That's another thing the Upright Platform enables," Demonts says. "We can explore data that is interesting beyond the reporting requirements."