1.2 Reporting criteria

Explanation of reporting criteria used

The GRI standards provided a structured approach to preparing the non-financial information in this report. This includes universal disclosures and topic-specific disclosures. The universal disclosures consist of three key elements:

1. Foundation: Defining report content & quality, requirements for preparing a report in line with reference to GRI
2. General disclosures: Contextual information about PostNL, its strategy, stakeholder engagement, governance and reporting practices
3. Management approach: Information on how PostNL manages its key material topics.

PostNL uses the topic-specific disclosures to describe the company’s impact related to each key material topic, expressed in key performance indicators. The GRI Content Index table in the Appendix 'GRI Content index' provides references to sections with specific information in relation to the GRI requirements in this report. The chapter 'Our operating context' describes all identified PostNL key material topics. Some key material topics are not referred to GRI, because we have also identified key material topics that are emerging and will be considered in the Annual Report 2024 in the context of the transition towards the CSRD. We refer those topics to GRI for which PostNL has a management approach and key performance indicators included in its corporate strategy. The emerging topics are "Business conduct", "Data security and protection", "Human rights and labour practices", "Responsible and resilient supply chain" and "Social presence and responsibility".

PostNL has also taken into account two important elements in relation to value creation as described by the IIRC:

• Strategic focus/future orientation: Information about the strategy and ability to create short-, medium-, and long-term value and the ability to the use of and effect on the relevant capitals
• Connectivity: Show a holistic picture of the combination, interrelatedness and dependencies between the factors that affect the organisation’s ability to create value over time.

Stakeholder engagement

As a listed company with a long and proud history in the Netherlands, we have an intricate stakeholder landscape. We engage with our stakeholders in different ways, on different levels and on different topics to better understand their interests and the way our activities affect their decision-making process. This helps us understand which topics are most material, and are of greatest significance to stakeholders. Understanding the expectations of stakeholders helps PostNL allocate resources effectively on relevant topics while focusing on adding short-, medium-, and long-term value. In addition to our day-to-day contact with stakeholders, PostNL also engages through regular and topic-specific stakeholder dialogue.

The CSRD requires PostNL to apply a different approach towards its materiality assessment than the approach used for GRI, which we have used for many years. The increase in scope, assessment elements, and level of detail adds complexity to the process and requires more specialist views.

While this new approach is helpful to identify more tangible material impacts, risks and opportunities than before, we also learned that we need to update our internal and external validation processes to obtain meaningful input on the new methodology. Ahead of a broader stakeholder validation in 2024, in 2023 we organised a stakeholder dialogue with a wide representation of key stakeholder groups on PostNL's impact on 'Social presence and responsibility' to test our external validation method and obtain insights to help us finalise our detailed double materiality assessment. The dialogue provided us with new insights, for example that stakeholders view broad community engagement as a shared responsibility for relevant partners in our value chain. In addition, stakeholders appreciated the role PostNL already takes through social projects run by the Special Moments Fund. We will use these insights when we finalise our process in 2024.

The table below details the topics of interest and the means of engagement with each stakeholder group.

ESG materiality assessment

PostNL interacts with its stakeholders on a wide variety of relevant but different topics. We use a materiality assessment to identify the most relevant topics that impact PostNL or on which PostNL impacts society and its stakeholders. In 2022, we expanded our methodology to incorporate more outside-in views of stakeholders in the process. We used different methods to obtain these views, including interviews. The key material topics included in this Annual Report are based on the outcome of our 2022 high-level double materiality assessment. As PostNL is in the process of finalising its detailed analysis following the required methodology of the ESRS, the list of topics may be subject to change for 2024.

Selecting the key material topics that drive our long-term value creation is required to bring focus to the Annual Report. This materiality concept is similar to financial reporting and is applied by evaluating the extent to which a topic impacts PostNL's business or through which PostNL impacts its environment, including stakeholders.

Key elements in our approach that are additional to the traditional assessments we applied before 2022 include:

• More focus on obtaining the views of external stakeholders;
• Applying an ESG lens on defining material topics (excluding business value topics for customers and shareholders);
• Applying the double materiality principle, which adds the evaluation of outside-in (financial impact) of topics on PostNL, in addition to the traditional inside-out impact PostNL has been reporting on for years, and which is required by GRI;
• Evaluating potential material topics in addition to actual material topics;
• Explicit identification of positive and negative impacts, included within PostNL's operations and its value chain.

To ensure the assessment's objectivity, PostNL gained the support of a professional external consultant to conduct the materiality assessment.

Identification of topics

Through the materiality assessment, PostNL selected, to the best of its knowledge, all relevant topics are included in this Annual Report. For each topic included in the Annual Report, PostNL identified the topic boundaries where PostNL’s impacts occur in the value chain and how PostNL is involved in these impacts. An overview of these boundaries is provided in the 'Our operating context' chapter.

The following sources and activities were used to prepare a longlist of topics as a first step in the assessment, and a shortlist of topics to be assessed on impact:

• Desktop research, including:
  • Peer review
  • Market trends
  • Topics evaluated in prior years, through our Annual Reports
  • Interests of benchmarks and guidelines (such as DJSI, CDP, GRI)
  • Media search
• Comparison of topics with European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS);
• Interviews with (senior) management representing certain stakeholder groups;
• Assessment of input collected;
• Validation of outcomes with project team.

Impact assessment and prioritisation of material topics

Based on the shortlist of topics from different inputs, an assessment was made to identify impact and prioritise topics based on the significance of impact. The following process steps were followed:

1. Additional desktop research on several stakeholder groups to assess topic relevance;
2. External interviews with stakeholders to assess topic relevance, as well as outside-in and inside-out impact;
3. Employee workshop to assess topic relevance as well as outside-in and inside-out impact;
4. Internal workshop to assess inside-out impacts;
5. Internal workshop to assess outside-in impacts.

Validation and approval of list of key material topics

The final step in the process was the validation of the outcomes of the assessment and approval process of the final list of key material topics. In this step the following activities were conducted:

1. Validation workshop with (senior) management members representing certain stakeholder groups
2. External stakeholder panel
3. Critical review by project team on potential biases in the process related to topics names, descriptions and scores
4. Validation of the proposed list of key material topics in the Executive Committee, which includes approval of PostNL's Board of Management.

List of topics and their relation to value creation

PostNL mapped its material topics to the five different domains of value creation. A summary of the stakeholder engagement and materiality assessment can be found in the 'Our operating context' chapter. This includes the list of topics labelled to the different domains of value creation and a brief description of the topics.

These topics are the starting point of our value creation model, which can be found in the 'How we create value' chapter.

In the chapter 'Our operating context', we disclose the list of key material topics as the outcome of the materiality assessment carried out at the end of 2022. PostNL considers 2023 a transitional year. in 2023, we deemed the topic ‘Customer experience and digital solutions’ primarily material from a business perspective to our value creation. This leaves 10 key material high-level ESG topics for 2023 in scope of our ESG reporting. As part of the transition towards reporting ESG information in accordance with the CSRD for the financial year 2024, the list of material topics may be updated for the following Annual Report.