Sustainability Accounting Standards Board

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board
Founded July 2011
Focus Sustainability accounting standards
Location
Website sasb.org

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board was founded in 2011 to develop and disseminate sustainability accounting standards. While the FASB has for the past forty years developed the accounting principles currently used in financial reporting in the United States, other social and environmental measures are now understood to be of relevance. The SASB aims to integrate its standards into the Form 10-K which must be filed by public companies with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; in this sense it differs from initiatives such as the GRI, by working within the current system of financial regulation.[1] The general principle is, in Peter Drucker's phrase, "what gets measured gets managed".[2]

SASB appointed in 2014 former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg as Chair and former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro as Vice Chair.[3]

Industry specific

The SASB aims to meet the need for industry-specific reporting standards, to ease comparison and benchmarking.[1][4] In order to do so, a Sustainable Industry Classification System covering ten sectors and 80+ industries has been devised. From Q4 2012, industry-specific working groups are to convene to pursue the goal of completing the standards within two and a half years.[5][6] Key performance indicators will then be updated annually.[1][7] There is recognition that establishing what is material in information that is fundamentally non-financial is complex.[4][8]

SASB IAG Members

Investors increasingly acknowledge that environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors can impact a company’s ability to manage risk and deliver financial performance over the long-term. As such, many investors use ESG information to develop a comprehensive view of company performance and to help evaluate a company’s long-term value. Investors can play an important role in enhancing disclosure effectiveness by expecting companies to disclose performance on material ESG factors and by participating in the development of disclosure standards. Accordingly, SASB has created an Investor Advisory Group (IAG). The IAG comprises leading asset owners and asset managers who are committed to improving the quality and comparability of sustainability-related disclosure to investors, and represent a combined total of more than $21 trillion USD assets under management (AUM).

The following entities have agreed to become founding members of SASB's IAG as of March 2018:
Aberdeen Standard Investments
APG Asset Management
Bank of America Merrill Lynch
BC Investment Management Corp.
BlackRock Inc
Breckinridge Capital Advisors
California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS)
California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS)
Calvert/ Eaton Vance
Capital Group International
Domini Impact Investments, LLC
Goldman Sachs Asset Management Co., Ltd.
Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
New York City Employees' Retirement System
Nordea Asset Management
Northern Trust Corp
Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP)
Oregon State Treasurer (OST)
Perella Weinberg Partners
PGGM Investments
PIMCO
QMA
State Street Global Advisors
Sustainable Insight Capital Management (SICM)
TIAA Global Asset Management
UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust
UBS Asset Management
Vanguard Group
Walden Asset Management
Wells Fargo & Co
Wespath Investment Management

Financing

During development SASB is to be funded by grants and donations, with the aim to be self-financing thereafter through intellectual property licensing, education and training.[6] Backers include Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Rockefeller Foundation.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Scott, Mike (24 June 2012). "US companies urged to put natural capital in accounts". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  2. ↑ Crooks, Ed (17 June 2012). "Calls for corporate disclosure of social impact". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  3. ↑ Wenzel, Else. "Finance powerhouses Michael Bloomberg and Mary Schapiro to lead SASB".
  4. 1 2 Eccles, Robert G. (et al.) (2012). "The Need for Sector-Specific Materiality and Sustainability Reporting Standards" (PDF). Journal of Applied Corporate Finance. Wiley-Blackwell/Morgan Stanley. 24 (2): 8–14.
  5. ↑ "US Sustainability Accounting Standards Board created". Deloitte. 5 July 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  6. 1 2 "SASB - FAQ". SASB. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  7. ↑ "The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board" (PDF). SASB. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
  8. ↑ "Standards for Disclosure". Ceres. Retrieved 7 August 2012.
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