SASB - ESG for Investors

Why Investors Use SASB Standards

Leading global investors want to evaluate how companies are managing the environmental, social, and governance factors that also impact financial performance. However, they have historically lacked access to comparable, standardized data they need to inform their decisions.

SASB Standards, which are uniquely tailored for investors, help address this need. Because they are industry-based, metric-driven, and focused on financial materiality, SASB Standards enable integration of sustainability considerations into investment and stewardship decisions across global portfolios and asset classes. They also provide investors with comparable data that feeds the data and analytics ecosystem.

Leading international investors support SASB Standards as a fundamental way for companies to communicate financially material sustainability information to investors in an industry-based and comparable way. These investors—across markets, asset classes, and strategies—use SASB Standards to integrate sustainability considerations into their investment decisions.

As of August 2022, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) of the IFRS Foundation assumed responsibility for the SASB Standards. The ISSB has committed to build on the industry-based SASB Standards and leverage SASB’s industry-based approach to standards development. This commitment includes a prominent role for SASB Standards in the IFRS Sustainability Exposure Drafts, which leading global investors support. The ISSB encourages investors and businesses to continue to provide full support for and to use the SASB Standards until IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards replace SASB Standards.

SASB Standards help investors…

Access corporate sustainability data that is comparable, consistent, and material to long-term enterprise value creation
Identify priority issues for corporate engagement
Improve the quality of fundamental equity and credit analysis in both public and private markets by incorporating a broader information set beyond financial statements
Expand risk reporting to encompass sustainability risks in addition to traditional risk measures like volatility
Develop a better understanding of sector-specific risks to inform risk allocation and risk management
Fulfill PRI signatory commitments

Click here to learn more about how investors use SASB Standards.

George C. W. Gatch

ICI Chairman and CEO,

J.P. Morgan Asset Management

Read more here

Fund managers require access to financially material ESG-related information from corporate issuers that is accurate, comparable, and timely. There is an emerging global consensus that companies should follow TCFD recommendations and SASB standards, and ICI members support this approach to help ensure fund managers can get useful information to make important decisions consistent with the investment objectives of funds and the needs of their shareholders.

UK Treasury's Asset Management Task Force on Stewardship

Read more here

SASB and TCFD already have a significant amount of traction with global investors and companies and are the basis on which many investors are developing their ESG integration processes….This sector specific approach and focus on governance and materiality provides essential information for investors to incorporate ESG information into their investment and stewardship processes and importantly, to be able to compare the long-term value of companies within sectors on a consistent basis.

Carine Smith Ihenacho

NBIM's Chief Corporate Governance Officer and member of the SASB Standards IAG

Read more here

Our mission is to safeguard and build wealth for future generations. As a long-term, universal investor, we have an interest in sustainable development. We urge (the supply of) standardized, concrete and relevant sustainability data and we ask companies to go from words to numbers – because what gets measured gets managed.

Larry Fink

Chairman and CEO

BlackRock

Read more here

While no framework is perfect, BlackRock believes that the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) provides a clear set of standards for reporting sustainability information across a wide range of issues, from labor practices to data privacy to business ethics.

The ``Maple Eight``

Read more here

As CEOs of Canada’s eight largest pension plan investment managers, representing $1.6 trillion in assets under management, we are committed to creating more sustainable and inclusive growth by integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into our strategies and investment decisions… We ask that companies measure and disclose their performance on material, industry-relevant ESG factors by leveraging the SASB Standards and the TCFD framework to further standardize ESG-related reporting.

The CFA Institute

Read more here

SASB focuses exclusively on the materiality of ESG information, including climate-related data. At CFA Institute, we consider SASB a key research tool for investors looking into climate-related data because of SASB’s focus on materiality.

Consejo Consultivo de Finanzas Verdes (CCFV)

The Green Finance Advisory Council

Read more here

We ask debt and equity issuers listed in the Mexican financial markets to adopt the internationally recognized standards issued by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), and the recommendations issued by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

Investor Use

Why Investors Use SASB Standards

Get Started Using SASB Standards