SASB — Definition and Sustainability Reporting Context
Not every sustainability issue matters to every company. The water a beverage maker draws is central to its business; the data-security practices of a bank are central to its. For years, investors trying to compare companies on sustainability were handed a wall of generic disclosures that buried the few metrics that actually moved the numbers. One US standard-setter set out to fix exactly that — by writing a different rulebook for every industry.
SASB is the framework that made sustainability disclosure industry-specific and investor-focused — and its standards now live inside the global accounting rulebook.
The SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) developed a set of industry-specific standards for disclosing the sustainability information most likely to affect a company’s financial performance. Founded as a US non-profit in 2011, it produced 77 industry standards built on financial materiality and aimed at investors. SASB was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation in 2022; its standards are now maintained by the ISSB and referenced by IFRS S1.
Definition — What SASB Is
SASB was an independent US non-profit, founded in 2011, that developed standards for corporate sustainability disclosure. Its distinguishing idea was that sustainability is not one-size-fits-all: the environmental, social, and governance issues that matter to a company’s bottom line differ sharply by industry. So rather than one universal template, SASB built 77 separate standards — one for each industry in its Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS), grouped into eleven sectors.
Each standard sets out the specific sustainability topics — and the quantitative accounting metrics for them — that are reasonably likely to affect the financial condition or operating performance of a typical company in that industry. The audience is squarely the investor: SASB’s purpose was to give capital markets decision-useful, comparable sustainability data, in the same spirit as financial accounting standards.
SASB is built on financial materiality — it discloses the sustainability issues that affect enterprise value, for investors. That is a narrower lens than the impact-focused, multi-stakeholder view of GRI, and narrower than the double materiality of the EU’s CSRD. The three are complementary layers, not competitors.
Where SASB Stands Now: Consolidated Into the ISSB
This is the most important thing to know about SASB in 2026: it no longer exists as a standalone body. In 2021 SASB merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council to form the Value Reporting Foundation, and in August 2022 that foundation was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation — the body behind global accounting standards. Responsibility for the SASB Standards passed to the newly created International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).
Crucially, the standards did not disappear — they were carried into the ISSB’s architecture. The ISSB’s IFRS S1 requires companies to “refer to and consider the applicability of” the SASB Standards when identifying which sustainability risks, opportunities, and metrics to disclose, wherever a specific ISSB standard such as IFRS S2 does not already cover the topic. The ISSB is also revising and internationalising the SASB Standards — stripping out US-centric references and, through exposure drafts issued in 2025 and 2026, updating priority industries, with finalised enhancements expected during 2026; this ongoing revision may in time consolidate or rename some of the current 77 standards (status as of mid-2026).
The “Sustainability Accounting Standards Board” as an organisation is gone; the SASB Standards continue, maintained by the ISSB and embedded in IFRS S1. A company applying IFRS S1 uses the SASB Standards as its industry-based source for identifying material topics and metrics — so the SASB name persists as the industry-guidance layer within the global standards, not as a separate framework to adopt.
What Makes SASB Distinctive: Industry-Specific, Financially Material
Two features set SASB apart from every other sustainability framework, and both survived its move into the ISSB.
First, it is industry-specific. Where most frameworks offer a universal set of topics that companies filter for relevance, SASB did the filtering in advance: it decided, industry by industry, which handful of issues are financially material — typically around six disclosure topics per industry, each with defined accounting metrics. An oil-and-gas standard foregrounds emissions and spill risk; a software standard foregrounds data security and energy use in data centres.
Second, it uses financial materiality. SASB’s test for inclusion is whether an issue is reasonably likely to affect a company’s financial performance — the information an investor needs to price risk. This is the same “single materiality” lens the ISSB standards adopt, and it is the axis on which SASB differs most clearly from impact-oriented frameworks. The emissions figures a company reports against a SASB metric are still calculated with the GHG Protocol across Scopes 1–3; SASB defines which metric to report and in what unit, not how to compute it.
SASB vs GRI
SASB is most often understood against the GRI Standards — the other dominant voluntary framework. They answer different questions and are frequently used together.
| SASB | GRI | |
|---|---|---|
| Materiality | Financial — effect on enterprise value | Impact — effect on economy, environment, and people |
| Primary audience | Investors and capital markets | All stakeholders |
| Structure | 77 industry-specific standards | Universal + topic + sector standards |
| Governance now | Maintained by the ISSB (IFRS Foundation) | Independent Global Sustainability Standards Board |
| Metrics | Prescribed, quantitative, comparable per industry | Broader topic disclosures, management approach |
The two are complementary: a company can report the financially material metrics an investor wants under SASB while giving the broader impact account stakeholders want under GRI. The EU’s double-materiality approach, by design, spans both lenses at once.
Its Legacy: The Industry Lens on Sustainability Data
Though the board is gone, SASB’s contribution is now foundational. It established that sustainability disclosure works best when it is industry-specific and quantitative, and it built the most widely used map of which issues matter to which businesses. That map is exactly what the ISSB inherited: IFRS S1 leans on the SASB Standards precisely because rebuilding an industry-by-industry taxonomy from scratch would have taken years.
So while a company today reports under IFRS S1 rather than “SASB”, it is very likely using SASB’s industry standards to decide what to disclose. Understanding SASB is understanding the industry-materiality logic that now sits at the centre of global sustainability reporting.
Common Confusions
- Thinking SASB is still an independent body. It was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation in 2022; the SASB Standards are now maintained by the ISSB.
- Treating SASB and GRI as interchangeable. SASB is financial-materiality and investor-focused; GRI is impact-focused and multi-stakeholder. Many companies report against both.
- Confusing it with an emissions methodology. SASB tells you which metric to disclose per industry; the numbers are calculated with the GHG Protocol.
- Assuming the standards are universal. SASB’s whole point is that materiality is industry-specific — there are 77 different standards, not one.
- Missing that SASB now underpins IFRS S1. Reporting under IFRS S1 means using the SASB Standards as the industry-guidance source, not choosing between them.
- Reading it as double materiality. SASB uses single, financial materiality — double materiality is the EU/CSRD approach, not SASB’s.
Related Terms, Standards, and Tools
SASB is built on financial materiality and now lives inside IFRS S1 and the wider ISSB standards — the same ISSB that absorbed the TCFD — while sitting alongside, and often used with, the impact-focused GRI Standards.
Frequently Asked Questions
The SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) was an independent US non-profit, founded in 2011, that developed industry-specific standards for corporate sustainability disclosure. It produced 77 standards — one for each industry in its classification system — each identifying the sustainability topics and accounting metrics reasonably likely to affect a company’s financial performance in that industry. Built on financial materiality and aimed at investors, the SASB Standards are now maintained by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) after SASB was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation in 2022.
SASB no longer exists as a standalone organisation. It merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council in 2021 to form the Value Reporting Foundation, which was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation in August 2022. The SASB Standards are now owned and maintained by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), which is revising and internationalising them. So the standards are very much still in use — they are just maintained by the ISSB rather than a separate board.
Two things. First, they are industry-specific: instead of one universal template, SASB wrote 77 separate standards, each pre-selecting the handful of sustainability topics that are financially material to that industry, with defined accounting metrics. Second, they use financial materiality — the test is whether an issue is reasonably likely to affect financial performance, so the standards are built for investors. Both features carried over into the ISSB standards that now house them.
They answer different questions. SASB uses financial materiality and is aimed at investors, disclosing the sustainability issues that affect a company’s enterprise value through 77 industry-specific standards. GRI uses impact materiality and is aimed at all stakeholders, reporting a company’s effects on the economy, environment, and people through universal and topic standards. They are complementary rather than competing — many companies report against both — and the EU’s CSRD combines the two lenses through double materiality.
The ISSB maintains the SASB Standards, and its IFRS S1 standard requires companies to “refer to and consider the applicability of” them when identifying which sustainability risks, opportunities, and metrics to disclose — wherever a specific ISSB standard such as IFRS S2 doesn’t already cover the topic. In effect, SASB provides the industry-by-industry guidance layer inside the ISSB’s global standards, which is why the standards remain central even though the board itself no longer exists.