The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) was a non-profit standard-setter founded in San Francisco in 2011 to develop industry-specific standards for disclosing sustainability information that is likely to affect a company's financial performance. Its standards, published in final form in November 2018, cover 77 industries and set out the topics and metrics most relevant to investors in each one, from water use at beverage makers to data security at banks.
SASB no longer exists as a separate organisation. In June 2021 it merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council to form the Value Reporting Foundation, which in turn was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation on 1 August 2022. The "SASB Standards" are now maintained by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), which refers to them in IFRS S1 and IFRS S2, the successors to the TCFD recommendations.
SASB in plain terms
A car mechanic and a baker both run businesses, but the things that could hurt them are very different. The mechanic worries about chemical spills and worker injuries; the baker worries about food safety and the price of flour. A single checklist for both would be either too long or too vague.
SASB's idea was to write a separate, short checklist for each type of business, listing only the sustainability issues that are likely to move that industry's profits. An investor looking at an airline gets fuel efficiency and safety; an investor looking at a software firm gets data privacy and staff retention. That focus on money-relevant issues is what people mean when they say SASB is built on financial materiality.
History
SASB was founded by Jean Rogers, with early support from foundations and from Michael Bloomberg, who later chaired its foundation board. It initially designed its standards for use in US annual filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), such as the Form 10-K. Between 2012 and 2016 it issued provisional standards sector by sector, then consulted widely before publishing the codified set in 2018.
In 2021 SASB and the IIRC combined into the Value Reporting Foundation. At COP26 in November 2021 the IFRS Foundation announced the creation of the ISSB and its plan to consolidate the Value Reporting Foundation and the Climate Disclosure Standards Board. The VRF consolidation was completed on 1 August 2022, and SASB's standards became the responsibility of the ISSB.
How the standards work
The standards are organised by the Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS), which groups companies by their sustainability risks rather than only by what they sell. Each industry standard contains:
- Disclosure topics. Typically around six per industry, chosen because evidence suggests they are financially material to a typical company in that industry.
- Accounting metrics. Quantitative and qualitative measures for each topic, such as greenhouse gas emissions, employee injury rates or the number of data breaches.
- Technical protocols. Definitions and calculation guidance so that figures are comparable between companies.
- Activity metrics. Measures of company size, such as production volume, that help normalise the other figures.
Topics fall under five broad dimensions: environment, social capital, human capital, business model and innovation, and leadership and governance.
Use by companies and investors
Companies use SASB metrics in sustainability reports, in the annual report and, since 2023, as guidance when applying the ISSB standards; IFRS S1 requires entities to refer to and consider the SASB Standards when identifying sustainability risks and opportunities. Investors use SASB-aligned data in ESG integration and stewardship, because the industry focus makes figures easier to compare across peers. Data providers and index providers map their ESG scores to SASB topics, and many approaches to best-in-class selection rank companies within SICS industries.
SASB's approach differs from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), which is aimed at a wider audience and covers a company's impacts on the economy, environment and people, and from the EU's European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which apply "double materiality". Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports often combine GRI and SASB indices. Related frameworks include the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which describe goals rather than reporting metrics.
Criticism and limitations
The standards are voluntary unless a jurisdiction adopts the ISSB framework, so use varies widely. Critics argue that a purely investor-focused, financial-materiality lens leaves out impacts that matter to employees, communities and the environment but have not yet shown up in profits. Others note that industry classification is imperfect for conglomerates, and that SASB metrics are often reported without independent assurance, unlike audited financial statements. In the United States, where the SEC has not adopted the ISSB standards, SASB-based disclosure remains a market practice rather than a legal requirement as of 2026.
Despite these limits, SASB's industry-based approach is widely credited with moving sustainability reporting closer to mainstream financial reporting and with shaping how sustainable investing teams decide which issues to analyse.