SASB issues industry-specific sustainability accounting standards

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08 Nov, 2018

The US Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has issued the world's first set of industry-specific sustainability accounting standards covering financially material issues in 77 industries. The standards aim at providing investors with in-depth information about the impact of a company’s actions on society and the environment - they come at a time of increased investor concern about companies' business practices.

What makes the standards unique in the marketplace is their focus on industry specificity and financial materiality. By addressing the subset of sustainability factors most likely to have financially material impacts on the typical company in an industry, SASB’s industry-specific standards help investors and companies make more informed decisions. They are global in nature and contain concepts that are important for investors and businesses around the world.

The release marks a six-year effort by the SASB. Over the course of those six years, the SASB released several sets of provisional standards for different industries, which have already been used by companies around the world. The SASB standards can be used alongside other sustainability frameworks and are well-aligned with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and are complementary to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

Please click to access the SASB press release. The SASB standards can be downloaded here.

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