Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Reporting

What is SASB?

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) was originally founded in 2011 as an independent nonprofit with a focus on developing industry-specific standards that help companies disclose sustainability information that is financially material to investors. It released its first formal standards in 2018, then merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to form the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF) in 2021. In 2022, VRF merged with the IFRS Foundation, bringing the SASB under the oversight of its newly established International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

The ISSB now maintains and evolves the SASB standards. These standards continue as a required reference point for companies applying ISSB standards to identify investor-relevant sustainability risks and opportunities and comparable financial data for decision-making. In 2025, the ISSB recommended a review of the nine priority industries within the SASB standards, alongside the revised updates across 41 others. Companies reporting under SASB today are building toward alignment with the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, which is the framework the ISSB is developing as the long-term global baseline.

What are the SASB standards?

The SASB framework covers 77 industries, including infrastructure, transportation, and healthcare, and identifies which sustainability risks and opportunities are likely to impact enterprise value and financial performance. Each industry gets its set of disclosure topics and accounting metrics. These industry-based standards can be accessed on the SASB Standards Navigator.

The SASB metrics were built through an open process of evidence-based research, collected input from companies and investors, and a sign-off from an independent SASB board. They are designed to complement instead of compete with other frameworks like GRI and CSRD.

Why are the SASB standards important for companies?

Investors need standardised, comparable ESG data to make capital decisions, and one of the biggest challenges for companies is producing that data consistently. The SASB standards close that gap by identifying the sustainability risks and opportunities that directly affect long-term value creation.

Beyond investor relations, SASB metrics reporting helps companies catch blind spots in their own operations. This can be from water consumption in resource-heavy industries to data security in tech. Reporting encourages internal alignment on what matters and why. It also puts companies on a stronger footing when working toward the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, which is a globally recognised baseline that regulators and investors are increasingly moving toward.

What are the five sustainability dimensions of SASB?

The SASB framework organises its “universe of sustainability issues” into 26 general issue categories spread into five dimensions. They translate directly into the metrics companies report.

Environment: This category covers greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, biodiversity impacts, water and wastewater management, waste and hazardous materials management, energy management, air quality, and fuel management.
Social capital: This addresses data security and customer privacy, customer welfare, human rights and community relations, fair marketing and advertising, access and affordability, and fair disclosure and labelling.
Human capital: This part focuses on diversity and inclusion, labour relations, compensation and benefits, fair labour practices, employee health, safety, and wellbeing, as well as recruitment, development, and retention.
Business model and innovation: This looks at product quality and safety, lifecycle impacts of products and services, environmental and social impacts on assets and operations, and product packaging.
Leadership and governance: This dimension covers board and executive oversight of regulatory capture and political influence, systemic risk management, business ethics, and payment transparency. It also includes supply chain management, materials sourcing, competitive behaviour, and accident and safety management.

What is the SASB Materiality Finder?

The SASB Materiality Finder is a free, publicly accessible tool that allows any user to look up disclosure topics relevant to a specific industry and compare up to four industries side by side. It breaks results into general issue categories for cross-industry comparison and industry-specific disclosure topics tailored to each sector. Before using the tool, companies first identify which industry they fall under through SASB’s Sustainability Industry Classification System® (SICS®), which groups companies by shared sustainability risks. From there, the materiality finder becomes the practical next step to assess which disclosure topics apply and where reporting gaps exist.

Companies that operate in more than one industry are not limited to a single standard. The finder allows them to pull up and compare multiple industry standards side by side, working through each one that is relevant to fully capture the full picture of their operations.

What is the SASB Materiality Map?

The SASB Materiality Map is a visual tool that plots sustainability issues across 77 industries, showing which topics are financially material for each sector. It helps companies quickly identify what to measure instead of doing this from scratch.

Access to the full materiality map requires a login through the SASB Standards Navigator, which is mainly for organisations that license the standards commercially. This restriction was introduced after SASB found widespread commercial use without proper licensing.

Are the SASB standards mandatory for ESG reporting?

The SASB standards are currently voluntary, and adoption of this framework has largely been driven by investor pressure and demand for transparent reporting. The IFRS S1 and S2 standards developed by the ISSB follow a similar approach. These standards are not automatically mandatory globally but take effect when individual jurisdictions choose to adopt them into their own regulatory requirements, as seen in phased or industry-specific mandates such as in Japan and Qatar.

As sustainability disclosure regulations tighten across major markets, companies that are already SASB-aligned may find the transition to formal requirements less disruptive. What begins as a best practice can become the baseline for what regulators formalise next.

Is there an SASB certification?

There is no official SASB certification issued to companies. However, professionals who have to analyse and report on these standards can pursue the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential. This is handled by the IFRS Foundation and is the recognised individual-level qualification in this space. While the FSA Credential covers sustainability and financial performance, it is not exclusively for SASB reporting.

What are the benefits of using SASB standards?

The benefits of SASB standards can vary with different stakeholders, especially for:

Companies

SASB metrics provide a defined, industry-specific baseline for disclosure. These SASB-aligned companies signal sustainability-focused investors with their transparent and well-performing disclosures. Integrating SASB with financial reporting also brings sustainability considerations into strategic planning with a fully embedded ESG strategy.

Investors

Institutional investors across 28 markets depend on the SASB framework for their financial materiality disclosures and company investment decisions. This is because the metric-based standards make sustainability performance comparable across geographies and asset classes, extending beyond what traditional financial statements show.

How can companies implement SASB standards?

Companies that are complying with disclosure regulations and those pushing for sustainable practices can follow these steps:

1. Identify the right industry standards and disclosure topics

The SASB framework covers 77 industries, and companies need to start by finding the ones that match their actual business activities. This means if a holding company spans several sectors, it must address each relevant standard individually, instead of applying a uniform set of criteria to all its activities. Tools like the SICS and SASB Materiality Finder can help pinpoint the most relevant disclosure topics and metrics.

2. Run a gap analysis

A company then maps its existing internal data against the SASB metrics that it identified as relevant to its industry. This step shows what data is already tracked, what else needs collecting, and where the data quality may be too inconsistent to be reliable for reporting. It also helps surface the sustainability risks and opportunities tied to the business, which can feed into strategy and decision-making.

3. Build disclosure into existing reporting channels

A standalone document is not necessary in Sustainability Accounting Standards Board disclosures. Companies can incorporate them into annual reports, investor presentations, or a dedicated section on their company website, wherever their stakeholders expect to find them. That approach also works well with IFRS S1, which places sustainability-related disclosures within general-purpose financial reporting tied to the same reporting period as annual financial statements.

4. Verify reported data through a third party

An internal review catches most errors, but an independent verification adds a layer of credibility that reveals process gaps before they become actual audit findings. This step tells investors and regulators that the numbers hold up to scrutiny.

5. Treat it as an ongoing process

Industries and operations scale and change through time, and the standards themselves get updated. Companies that build regular review cycles into their reporting practice stay ahead in each disclosure period.

How does SASB compare to other ESG reporting frameworks?

What sets SASB apart is its global scope and singular focus on financial materiality, on which sustainability issues affect investor decision-making and company value. Global frameworks, such as the GRI standards, which cover a company’s impact on the economy, environment, and society, regardless of whether those impacts affect financial performance. Many companies also use both for a broader approach in stakeholder reporting. This framework complements the CSRD regulations that operate on double materiality, where how sustainability issues affect the business financially and how the business affects people and the planet are reported simultaneously.

How Presgo Supports SASB Sustainability Reporting

Presgo, an AI-native ESG reporting software, equips companies to structure SASB-aligned disclosures and build toward broader compliance without starting from scratch each reporting cycle. Its tools connect raw ESG data to the specific metrics, frameworks, and audit requirements that investors and regulators expect to see. Companies reporting under SASB and IFRS standards can move from data collection to a report that holds up to investor trust and external verification.