SASB Standards
Definition
SASB Standards
The SASB Standards are the industry-specific sustainability standards naming the issues that matter most to investors across seventy-seven industries. They belong to the International Sustainability Standards Board now, not to the body whose name they still carry.
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board built them between 2011 and 2018 on a single premise — that materiality is industry-specific rather than universal.
That premise is the whole contribution. A software firm and a mining company face different sustainability risks — asking both the same questions produces noise rather than information.
The standards survived the consolidation of sustainability reporting because the industry metrics were too useful to discard, and because thousands of companies were already reporting against them.
Key takeaways
- The standards cover seventy-seven industries with a distinct metric set for each.
- They apply a financial-materiality lens aimed at investors rather than at all stakeholders.
- The International Sustainability Standards Board has maintained them since the 2022 consolidation.
- Companies applying IFRS S1 are directed to the SASB metrics when identifying disclosures.
How it works
Each standard identifies the sustainability topics likely to affect financial performance in one industry, then specifies metrics for each. A company finds its industry, reads the topics and reports the metrics that apply.
The current owner is unambiguous. The standards “identify the sustainability-related issues most relevant to investor decision-making in 77 industries”, and “The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is responsible for the SASB Standards”.
Their role inside the newer standards is structural rather than decorative. They put companies “on the path toward implementation of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards”, and IFRS S1 directs preparers to them when deciding what to disclose.
| Feature | SASB Standards | Impact-oriented standards |
|---|---|---|
| Primary reader | Investors and capital providers | All stakeholders |
| Materiality test | Financial | Impact on people and environment |
| Structure | By industry | By topic, with sector supplements |
| Maintained by | The International Sustainability Standards Board | The Global Sustainability Standards Board |
Commentary confirms the continuity for preparers. Companies already reporting under these standards “will only need minimal adjustments to tracking and reporting practices, since the industry metrics defined by the SASB standards take a financial materiality approach”.
Work continues on the standards themselves — the board has been revising them to make the metrics usable outside the United States market they were originally written for, with those enhancements due to conclude in 2026.
Examples
The standards matter to outsourcing through the industries they cover and the questions those industries then ask suppliers. The cases below show where they surface.
A software and information technology services company reports against its own industry standard, which raises data security, energy management in data centres and recruiting and managing a skilled workforce.
An outsourcing provider serving that client finds the same three topics in its supplier questionnaire, because the client is pushing its own disclosure requirements down the chain.
A commercial bank reports on data security and financial inclusion, which shapes what it asks of the offshore providers handling its customer information.
A conglomerate reporting across four industry standards discovers the metrics do not aggregate, since the whole design assumes industry-level comparison rather than group-level totals. It publishes four sets and lets readers combine them.
Related terms
Investor-focused disclosure sits alongside several adjacent concepts that appear in the same documents and mean quite different things. The entries below separate them, starting with the subject these standards were built to structure.
- ESG environmental social governance: the subject these standards structure for investors.
- Sustainable investing: the investment approach these disclosures serve.
- Sustainability bond: an instrument priced partly on disclosed performance.
- Reporting outsourcing: contracting out the preparation of these reports.
- Green bond: a narrower instrument with use-of-proceeds conditions.
- Greenwashing: the risk that industry-specific metrics are designed to reduce.
- Business risk: the category financial materiality ultimately tests against.
FAQ
Does the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board still exist?
No. Its work transferred to the International Sustainability Standards Board in 2022, which now maintains the standards under the SASB name.
How many industries do the standards cover?
Seventy-seven, each with its own set of disclosure topics and accounting metrics.
Are the standards mandatory?
Not by themselves. They become effective requirements where a company applies IFRS S1, which directs preparers to consider them.
How do they differ from impact-oriented standards?
They test whether an issue affects financial performance. Impact standards test whether the organisation affects people and the environment, regardless of financial consequence.
Do outsourcing providers report against them?
Rarely in their own right. They meet the metrics indirectly, through client questionnaires derived from the client’s industry standard.
Are the standards changing?
Yes, with enhancements due to conclude in 2026.
Compare providers that can already answer investor-grade supplier questions in the Outsource Accelerator directory.
Independent
