FAQ

Yes. The SASB Standards are used in over 2,800 companies in more than 70 jurisdictions around the world, including 72% of the S&P Global 1200 Index, because industry-based sustainability disclosures are cost-efficient for companies and decision-useful for investors. Businesses worldwide use SASB Standards to better identify, manage and communicate the material information about sustainability-related risks and opportunities they face.

Furthermore, the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards being developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to form the global baseline for sustainability-related disclosures build upon the SASB Standards and the TCFD Recommendations. Through IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information, the ISSB requires companies to consider the SASB Standards, in the absence of specific IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, to identify sustainability-related risks, opportunities and related information.

The ISSB is enhancing the international applicability of the SASB Standards—a targeted project to ensure any companies can use them to advance their disclosure under IFRS S1, regardless of where they are based or their operating footprint—and continuing the SASB Standards projects it inherited from the SASB Standards Board. In other words, the ISSB is not just building upon and preserving the SASB Standards, it is updating and improving them.

Companies that apply the SASB Standards now will find they are an efficient solution for disclosing sustainability information and a solid foundation for adopting IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

Whether you are planning to adopt the ISSB Standards early or in 2024¹, adopting or continuing to use the SASB Standards will help you because:

• IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information (S1) requires companies to consider the SASB Standards, knowing that those 77 industry-based disclosure standards provide investors with comparable, decision-useful information.
• SASB Standards, now part of the IFRS Foundation materials, will continue to be supported on a standalone basis by the ISSB for at least 4 years and realistically probably longer, with ISSB Standards that build on the SASB industry-based standards to follow.

The ISSB actively encourages preparers and investors to continue to provide full support for and to use the SASB Standards. They will be maintained and enhanced, through rigorous due process, under the ISSB throughout their continued existence.

The SASB Standards as well as all SASB Standards implementation tools and resources, now part of the IFRS Foundation, are still accessible via sasb.org.

¹ The first two ISSB Standards are effective for reporting periods beginning on or after January 1, 2024. Early adoption is permitted but must be disclosed. Various transition reliefs are available, including the ability for an entity to report on only climate-related risks and opportunities (as set out in IFRS S2) in the first year it applies IFRS S1 and IFRS S2.

All open SASB Standards projects were transitioned to the ISSB as of August 1, 2022, when the Value Reporting Foundation consolidated into the IFRS Foundation. The SASB Standards Board’s recommended changes were passed to the ISSB for further deliberation and will be subject to the IFRS Foundation’s due process.

Work is expected to continue on these projects, although public consultation on the ISSB's future agenda priorities will inform their detailed delivery plan.

Additionally, the ISSB will enhance the international applicability of the SASB Standards. In other words, the ISSB is not just preserving the SASB Standards, it is updating and improving them to provide a solid footing when companies use them when applying the new IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. As part of that process, a group of ISSB members—chaired by Jeff Hales, former Chair of the SASB Standards Board—has been established and tasked with developing recommendations for the ISSB related to the maintenance, evolution and enhancement of the SASB Standards. The group will develop drafts of the required exposure drafts of amendments to the SASB Standards and, after considering the stakeholder feedback, drafts of the final amendments. The ISSB as a full board will consider the recommendations of this group in ISSB meetings (which are public) and ratify the exposure drafts and, subsequently the final amendments prepared by the group. The comment period for the exposure drafts will be the same as for those related to IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

Stay up to date on the ISSB’s work plan, decisions and projects by subscribing to receive sustainability alerts via the IFRS Foundation’s notifications dashboard.

Industry-based disclosures are cost-efficient for companies and useful for investors. Using industry-based disclosure topics and metrics in the SASB Standards enables companies to address a range of sustainability-related risks and opportunities.

IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information provides the basis for achieving a truly global baseline of sustainability disclosure that meets investor needs. You can think of it as an outline: the overarching standard that applies to all sustainability-related risks and opportunities but does not specify what those risks and opportunities are.

To help companies identify their sustainability-related risks and opportunities and provide appropriate disclosures using IFRS S1, companies are required to consider the industry-based SASB Standards for topics beyond climate.

IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures provides the details for how to meet investor needs for climate disclosures. It is based on the TCFD Recommendations with industry-specific climate metrics based on the SASB Standards.

To help companies determine which climate metrics to disclose, IFRS S2 includes industry-specific metrics derived from the SASB Standards as accompanying guidance.

First, thank you for your interest in engaging with and supporting the ISSB as it works toward delivering a global baseline of sustainability disclosure standards. Your engagement, including 1,400+ responses on the General Requirements (IFRS S1) and Climate (IFRS S2) Exposure Drafts, has contributed to the quality and speed of the ISSB’s work to date and will continue to be important to their work going forward.

The ISSB issued its first two Standards (IFRS S1 and IFRS S2) in June 2023. For notices of upcoming consultation periods, please subscribe to receive sustainability alerts via the IFRS Foundation’s notifications dashboard. See the ISSB Update for preliminary decisions of the ISSB. See the ISSB FAQs for more information about the ISSB and its work. Other questions and feedback for the ISSB can be submitted via the contact form on the ISSB’s webpage.

The FSA Credential continues to be offered under the IFRS Foundation following the consolidation of the Value Reporting Foundation into the IFRS Foundation in August 2022. The transition of the SASB Standards and Integrated Reporting Framework to the IFRS Foundation and ISSB increases the global relevance and the value of the FSA Credential.

For addition questions, see the FSA Credential FAQ.

Various disclosure frameworks and standards have adopted a range of definitions of “materiality” focused on different users and objectives. SASB Standards, like ISSB Standards—as well as the initiatives that have converged under the ISSB (CDSB, TCFD and Integrated Reporting)—are focused on investor needs. SASB Standards are designed to facilitate the disclosure of sustainability-related financial information that is likely influence investor decision-making.

The original definition of ‘materiality’ underpinning the SASB Standards was the definition established under the U.S. securities laws:

Information is material if there is “a substantial likelihood that the disclosure of the omitted fact would have been viewed by the reasonable investor as having significantly altered the ‘total mix’ of information made available.”

Revisions were proposed to this definition in 2020 and were made available for public comment. The revised definition per the exposure draft was as follows:

“For the purpose of SASB’s standard-setting process, information is financially material if omitting, misstating, or obscuring it could reasonably be expected to influence investment or lending decisions that users make on the basis of their assessments of short-, medium-, and long-term financial performance and enterprise value.”

Materiality Finder enables companies to easily identify topics that are likely to be relevant for their industry or industries, providing a cost-effective way to disclose material sustainability-related financial information that meets investor needs.

There are other initiatives with a broader scope, focused on multi-stakeholder needs and policy objectives, including GRI.

First, thank you for your interest in engaging with and supporting the ISSB as it works toward delivering a global baseline of sustainability disclosure standards. Your engagement, including 1,400+ responses on the General Requirements (IFRS S1) and Climate (IFRS S2) Exposure Drafts, has contributed to the quality and speed of the ISSB’s work to date and will continue to be important to their work going forward.

The ISSB issued its first two Standards (IFRS S1 and IFRS S2) in June 2023. For notices of upcoming consultation periods, please subscribe to receive sustainability alerts via the IFRS Foundation’s notifications dashboard. See the ISSB Update for preliminary decisions of the ISSB. See the ISSB FAQs for more information about the ISSB and its work. Other questions and feedback for the ISSB can be submitted via the contact form on the ISSB’s webpage.

Oversight of the SASB Standards has transitioned from the SASB Standards Board to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) of the IFRS Foundation. The IFRS Foundation transparently provides stakeholders with a view into the ISSB’s agenda, activities, deliberations, decisions, active projects and other standards-related updates.

In 2023, the ISSB will enhance the international applicability of the SASB Standards and continue SASB Standards projects handed over by the VRF. In other words, the ISSB is not just preserving the SASB Standards, it is updating and improving them to provide a solid footing when companies use them when applying the new IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

As part of that process, a group of ISSB members—chaired by Jeff Hales, former Chair of the SASB Standards Board—has been established and tasked with developing recommendations for the ISSB related to the maintenance, evolution and enhancement of the SASB Standards. The group will develop drafts of the required exposure drafts of amendments to the SASB Standards and, after considering the stakeholder feedback, drafts of the final amendments. The ISSB as a full board will consider the recommendations of this group in ISSB meetings (which are public) and ratify the exposure drafts and, subsequently the final amendments prepared by the group. The comment period for the exposure drafts will be the same as for those related to IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

Visit the IFRS Foundation notifications dashboard to stay informed about the work of the ISSB.

The approach to governance in the SASB Standards differs from a more traditional assessment of board structures, processes and shareholder rights. Because many of these traditional governance topics are addressed by existing regulation—including stock exchange listing requirements and industry-based or jurisdictional principles and codes—SASB Standards instead include industry-based performance metrics likely to serve as indicators of governance quality, such as fines and settlements, violations, accidents, etc. In this regard, SASB Standards recognize that while corporate governance drives value across every sector, each industry also has its own unique governance profile. For example, the governance issues most likely to be considered in investors’ assessments of enterprise value might involve systemic risks (as in the Financials sector), or operations in highly regulated markets (as in the Infrastructure sector) SASB Standards metrics for these and other issues are intended to complement—not replace—existing, well-established frameworks for reporting on traditional governance issues, such as those developed by the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), the Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and the Investor Stewardship Group.

There is broad support in global capital markets for all companies—regardless of their industry—to disclose their Scope 1, Scope 2 and (where feasible) Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. For this reason, IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures includes cross-industry disclosure requirements for Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 GHG emissions (subject to an entity’s determination that information regarding those emissions is material). The approach to climate-related disclosure in the SASB Standards is different but not in conflict with such cross-industry reporting.

A subset of 22 SASB Standards include disclosure topics and metrics regarding direct (Scope 1) emissions, because the SASB standard-setting process identified those industries as the most likely to face financial effects specifically related to their emissions. These effects may manifest as regulatory risks and shifts in consumer demand, which in turn affect costs and revenues.

For indirect emissions, SASB Standards capture the operational and/or strategic factors that give rise to such emissions. For the 35 industries that indirectly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions through significant use of purchased electricity (i.e., Scope 2), SASB Standards contain metrics related to understanding the amount, type (conventional or renewable) and source (self-generated or purchased) of energy.

For industries that indirectly contribute to greenhouse gas emissions upstream (e.g., from purchased materials processing and transportation), downstream (e.g., from distribution and use of products) or in other ways (e.g., from employee commuting and business travel)—in other words, Scope 3 emissions—SASB Standards recommend metrics directly related to performance in those areas.

For more information on the approach to GHG emissions and related topics in the SASB Standards, see the SASB Implementation Supplement: Greenhouse Gas Emissions and SASB Standards and the SASB Climate Risk Technical Bulletin.

Human capital issues are well-represented throughout the 77 SASB industry standards, as detailed in the SASB Human Capital Bulletin. However, many issues are rapidly evolving and both companies and investors are increasingly attuned to their financial implications. As a result, investor expectations for human capital disclosure are rising. With this in mind, SASB Standards research staff undertook the Human Capital research project with the objective of evolving the content of the Standards in light of emerging trends.

In December of 2021, the SASB Standards Board approved a new standard-setting project evaluating whether and how to address the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion in 45 industries. More information on that project can be found on the DEI project page.

These projects were transitioned to the ISSB upon consolidation of the Value Reporting Foundation into the IFRS Foundation in August 2022. The consultation on the ISSB's future agenda priorities will inform the delivery plan for these projects.

Water and wastewater management is one of the more prevalent issues addressed in SASB Standards, appearing in 25 of 77 industries. However, in many cases, the issue can have diversified impacts on operating risk and financial performance from one industry to the next, and these differences are reflected in the SASB Standards content.

Water risk impacts are physical in nature, such as those driven by limited natural water availability, competition for water resources and watershed pollution. SASB Standards consider two high-level categories of physical water risk: access to water and water quality. Additionally, SASB Standards consider how the regulatory environment can affect physical water risks and a company’s ability to manage those risks.

Metrics can be categorised in the following ways:

• "Industry-based" metrics are those that are tailored to a particular industry context.
• “Industry-agnostic” metrics are those that can be used to measure performance on a topic in a range of different industry contexts.
• “Cross-industry” metrics are applied consistently across all industries.

Because SASB Standards are designed to identify and standardise disclosure for the sustainability-related risk and opportunities most relevant to investor decision-making in each of 77 industry verticals, SASB Standards are industry-based and primarily contain industry-based metrics. However, many risks and opportunities cut across industries and sectors and those issues in many cases can be measured consistently across different business models (i.e., using "industry-agnostic" metrics). For example, SASB disclosure topics related to energy management (35 industries), employee health and safety (26 industries) and water management (25 industries) use identical or near-identical metrics in most relevant industry contexts.

SASB Standards do not currently contain "cross-industry" quantitative metrics, although demand has increased for certain metrics—such as those related to human capital management and climate change—to be more consistently applied across all industries. For qualitative disclosure, SASB Standards Application Guidance recommends that all companies disclose information about their governance, strategy and risk management for all SASB disclosure topics.

No. The scope of monetary losses included in the disclosure shall include only the losses that were accrued (i.e., on the statement of profit or loss) during the reporting period, which might differ from the amount paid in that period. The entity shall report the net amount of any loss or gain, including amounts reported in a prior period that are reversed during the current reporting period.

Although reporting companies may face different thresholds for recognition (i.e., “probable”) depending on whether they are reporting under local GAAP or IFRS Accounting Standards, SASB Standards Application Guidance recommends that, when providing disclosure in accordance with SASB Standards, companies do so in a way that is consistent with their financial reporting.

All losses accrued during the current reporting period shall be included in the scope of disclosure.

Yes. The SASB Standards are used in over 2,800 companies in more than 70 jurisdictions around the world, including 72% of the S&P Global 1200 Index, because industry-based sustainability disclosures are cost-efficient for companies and decision-useful for investors. Businesses worldwide use SASB Standards to better identify, manage and communicate the material information about sustainability-related risks and opportunities they face.

Furthermore, the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards being developed by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) to form the global baseline for sustainability-related disclosures build upon the SASB Standards and the TCFD Recommendations. Through IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information, the ISSB requires companies to consider the SASB Standards, in the absence of specific IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, to identify sustainability-related risks, opportunities and related information.

The ISSB is enhancing the international applicability of the SASB Standards—a targeted project to ensure any companies can use them to advance their disclosure under IFRS S1, regardless of where they are based or their operating footprint—and continuing the SASB Standards projects it inherited from the SASB Standards Board. In other words, the ISSB is not just building upon and preserving the SASB Standards, it is updating and improving them.

Companies that apply the SASB Standards now will find they are an efficient solution for disclosing sustainability information and a solid foundation for adopting IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.

Providing sustainability disclosures using SASB Standards is a cost-effective way to provide decision-useful information to investors and puts companies in a prime position for implementing IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. A good place to start is reviewing the SASB Standard(s) for your industry (or industries) and the SASB Standards Implementation Primer. Additionally, a number of case studies and Q&As with reporting companies may provide useful insights on getting started. Finally, it may be valuable to review the disclosures of other SASB Standards reporters in your industry.

For a company that operates in multiple industries, more than one industry Standard may be required to address the full array of sustainability topics reasonably likely to influence investors’ decision-making. One company that operates across eight SICS industries shared its approach in the SASB Standards 201 implementation webinar. Please consult the SASB Standards Application Guidance and "Understanding SASB Standards" within the SASB Standards Implementation Primer for further information. The ISSB will soon publish guidance on how to disclose industry-specific metrics when a company’s operations span multiple industries.

A company determines for itself which SASB Standards are relevant to its business, which disclosure topics represent significant sustainability-related risks and/or opportunities, and which associated metrics to report. When a company determines that a sustainability topic is relevant to its business objectives, SASB Standards offer a way to provide standardised disclosure on that topic, for the benefit of both companies and investors.

For more information on determining which disclosure topics and associated metrics to disclose, see the “Determine Which Disclosure Topics are Applicable” subsection within the SASB Standards Implementation Primer. Informed by extensive investor feedback, SASB Standards Application Guidance recommends that when a company omits or modifies a SASB metric, it should disclose its rationale for doing so.

SASB Standards are designed to address sustainability factors that are applicable to the typical company within an industry. In some cases they may:

• Include topics that, for certain companies, may not represent a significant risk or opportunity; and/or
• Not necessarily include every sustainability factor that is relevant to a reporting company.

The SASB Standards Application Guidance recommends that a company disclose its rationale when it omits or modifies a SASB metric.

When choosing to include additional topics in its disclosure, a company should consider providing a narrative describing why the topic is important and reviewing other SASB industry standards in which the topic is covered to ensure that metrics are well-aligned with those commonly in use.

For more information, see the “Understanding SASB Standards” section of the SASB Standards Implementation Primer.

No. Companies are responsible for determining which SASB disclosure topics represent significant risks or opportunities for their business and which associated metrics warrant disclosure, taking the company’s business model, business strategy and relevant legal requirements into account. A company can make a disclosure using the SASB Standards and, in doing so, state that it has not concluded that the information is material.

As an independent standard-setter, the IFRS Foundation does not provide advisory or assurance services. We recommend that reporting companies seek the advice of professional consultants, assurance providers, and legal counsel when preparing disclosures in accordance with SASB Standards. For technical questions about how to interpret or apply the Standards, contact SASB Standards technical staff.

For answers to licensing questions, please see IFRS Sustainability licensing FAQs.

In response to the demand from investors and businesses to simplify the global sustainability disclosure landscape, the IFRS Foundation formed the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), bringing together the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and the Value Reporting Foundation (which housed the SASB Standards and the Integrated Reporting Framework). The ISSB is developing a global baseline of sustainability-related disclosure standards (the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards) and a taxonomy to facilitate digital reporting, building upon the existing work of market-led investor-focused reporting initiatives, including the SASB Standards, the Task Force for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the World Economic Forum. IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards will enable companies to provide comprehensive information about sustainability matters to the financial markets, emphasizing consistency and connectivity between financial statements and sustainability-related disclosures.

IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards direct companies to the industry-based SASB Standards as priority materials for identifying sustainability risks and opportunities. Specifically:

• In IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information, to help companies identify their sustainability-related risks and opportunities and provide appropriate disclosures using IFRS S1, companies are required to refer to and consider the applicability of the industry-based SASB Standards for topics beyond climate.
• IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures is based on the TCFD Recommendations and includes industry-specific climate metrics derived from the SASB Standards as accompanying guidance.

SASB Standards can be used to provide investor-focused sustainability disclosures in the absence of specific IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards. Similarly, SASB Standards enable robust implementation of the Integrated Reporting Framework, providing the comparability sought by investors.

Other sustainability-related disclosure frameworks serve their own unique purposes, and ultimately, companies must evaluate and decide which meet the needs of their key stakeholders.

Prior to the establishment of the ISSB, investors increasingly coalesced around a combination of the TCFD recommendations and SASB Standards as foundational tools to provide capital markets with effective climate- and sustainability-related financial disclosure. As such, the ISSB’s first two standards, IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures, combine key aspects of the two.

IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 fully incorporate the TCFD Recommendations, so companies will not need to apply both the TCFD Recommendations and ISSB Standards. An entity applying IFRS S2 would also satisfy the TCFD Recommendations. IFRS S1 requires companies to consider the SASB Standards as a source of guidance, in the absence of a specific IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standard, for identifying sustainability-related risks and opportunities and appropriate information to disclose. IFRS S2 includes climate-related metrics derived from the SASB Standards as accompanying guidance.

Therefore, companies that already apply the TCFD Recommendations and the SASB Standards are in prime position to apply the ISSB Standards. For more information about how the TCFD recommendations and SASB Standards fit together, see the SASB Climate Risk Technical Bulletin. Visit the IFRS project page for information on the ISSB's IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures.

Within the growing field of sustainability-related disclosure, a variety of frameworks and standards have been developed to help establish a foundational layer of relevant, comparable and reliable data from companies.

• Disclosure frameworks, like the Integrated Reporting Framework, provide a set of principles-based guidance for how information is structured and prepared, and which broad topics are covered.
• Disclosure standards, like the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, provide specific, replicable and detailed requirements for what should be reported for each topic. In other words, standards make frameworks actionable by providing comparable, consistent, reliable information.

Disclosure frameworks and standards are complementary and designed to be used together.

SASB Standards and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards are compatible standards for sustainability reporting. They are designed to fulfill different purposes and are based on different approaches to materiality. SASB Standards focus on sustainability issues most likely to influence investor decision-making. GRI Standards focus on the economic, environmental and social impacts of a company in relation to sustainable development, which is of interest to a broad range of stakeholders.

Many companies—including ArcelorMittal, PSA Group, Diageo, and Nike—have used both SASB Standards and GRI Standards to meet the needs of their audiences.

Still, both organisations recognise that the sustainability disclosure landscape can appear complicated, and for companies that use both sets of standards, the reporting effort can be high. To help address this, a joint paper demonstrates how some companies—including General Motors and Suncor Energy—have used both sets of standards together and the lessons that can be shared.

Yes. In fact, SASB Standards are mapped to the SDGs, and 98% of the industry-based topics included in SASB Standards are related to one or more SDG targets. Thus, SASB Standards can provide a useful tool for companies and investors to identify the SDG targets most relevant to a given industry. This can help both companies and investors allocate financial capital and other resources to areas where the potential to influence specific SDG targets aligns with the potential to impact financial returns. When companies and investors can simultaneously achieve positive impact, reduce negative impact and meet their financial risk-and-return targets, we call this intersection the “sweet spot.”

Although SASB Standards are not a tool to measure progress toward achievement of the SDGs, nor to communicate a company’s contribution toward achievement of the Goals, helping companies and investors identify the “sweet spot” has the potential to unlock significant capital toward the achievement of the SDGs. Read more about the SASB Standards capabilities and SDG mapping in the SASB Standards Industry Guide to the SDGs.

As capital markets increasingly recognise the important links between sustainability performance and financial outcomes, a complex and thriving ecosystem of organizations and initiatives has developed to provide a wide range of sustainability-related information and analytics. Disclosure standards, like SASB Standards, are the foundation of this ecosystem.

SASB Standards help investors by fostering company disclosures of sustainability data that is comparable, consistent and decision-useful. With better data, investors can better evaluate companies’ performance to inform investment and voting decisions.

SASB Standards, along with other disclosure standards and frameworks, help ensure high-quality company-reported information, on which the ecosystem depends. Upon this foundation, data providers and rating agencies can build tools and resources for capital markets. As such, many ratings providers and investors license SASB Standards for commercial use in their proprietary ESG scoring tools and assessment methodologies. A full list of organizations that do so is available, along with several of investor case studies highlighted in the SASB Standards ESG Integration Insights series.