SASB Standards explained: how industry metrics fit with ISSB reporting

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards identify sustainability issues and metrics for 77 industries. Their role has changed: they are no longer best understood as a separate reporting framework sitting beside the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). They now help companies find the industry-specific information needed when applying International Financial Reporting Standard S1 (IFRS S1) and International Financial Reporting Standard S2 (IFRS S2).

That makes SASB more important, but not automatic. A software company, commercial bank and meat producer should not report the same sustainability information simply because all three publish an environmental, social and governance report. Their business models expose them to different risks, opportunities and operating evidence.

SASB provides a structured place to start. It does not remove the need for judgement. A metric can appear in an industry standard and still be immaterial to a particular company. A company can also have material information that is not captured neatly by one standard, especially when it spans several industries or has an unusual business model.

The central task is therefore not to complete every SASB metric. It is to use the standards to identify what may matter, test that against the company, and build disclosures that connect the resulting numbers to strategy, governance and financial prospects.

What the SASB Standards are

The SASB Standards are industry-based disclosure standards designed to surface sustainability-related risks and opportunities that could affect a company's cash flows, access to finance or cost of capital. They focus on information intended to be useful to investors.

There are standards for 77 industries, organised through the Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS). Each standard combines several layers:

• Disclosure topics identify sustainability-related risks or opportunities associated with an industry.
• Metrics provide quantitative or qualitative information about performance on those topics.
• Technical protocols define the scope, calculation and presentation of each metric.
• Activity metrics describe the scale of the business and help readers compare performance.

The IFRS Foundation says a SASB industry standard contains about six disclosure topics and 13 metrics on average. That is compact compared with a broad sustainability questionnaire, but it is still too much to treat as a mechanical reporting list. The metric definitions, business boundary and links to financial effects all need attention.

How SASB moved inside the ISSB system

The International Sustainability Standards Board assumed responsibility for the SASB Standards in August 2022. IFRS S1 and IFRS S2 were then issued in 2023, changing the way companies should understand the relationship.

Under IFRS S1, a company must refer to and consider the applicability of the SASB disclosure topics when identifying sustainability-related risks and opportunities. In the absence of a specific IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standard, it must also refer to and consider SASB metrics when deciding what industry-specific information to disclose.

IFRS S2 takes a related route for climate. Its industry-based guidance was derived from the climate content in the SASB Standards. A company applying IFRS S2 must consider that guidance when identifying industry-specific climate disclosures.

This status is easy to misstate. The SASB Standards are not simply mandatory line-by-line checklists under IFRS S1. Nor are they optional background that can be ignored without thought. The requirement is to consider their applicability and then make a defensible materiality judgement.

From industry list to disclosure

A company can use the SASB Standards through a five-stage process.

1. Map the business to the relevant industries

Start with how the company makes money, not with the wording on its website. Review business lines, products, customers, assets and geographies against the SICS industry descriptions. A diversified group may need several standards. A company classified one way by a market-data provider may find that its actual activities cross more than one SASB industry.

2. Review the disclosure topics

Read the topics for each plausible industry and ask whether the underlying risk or opportunity could affect the company's prospects. The answer should connect to the business model. Water management may be central for a semiconductor manufacturer or agricultural producer and less significant for another company with modest operational water use.

3. Test the metrics, not only the topic names

A relevant topic does not guarantee that every associated metric fits. Read the technical protocol, calculation boundary, units and exclusions. Compare them with the company's systems and operating reality. If management proposes a different metric, record why it provides more useful information.

4. Build the evidence trail

Identify the source system, data owner, calculation method, review control and supporting document for each proposed disclosure. The sustainability reporting controls guide explains how source-to-report ownership and review trails support reliable disclosure.

5. Connect the metric to the wider report

A standalone number rarely explains enough. The reader also needs to understand governance, strategy, risk management, targets, time horizons and financial effects. If a water metric is material, the report should show why water affects the business and how management responds. If employee safety is material, the company should not publish an incident rate without explaining its boundary, trend and controls.

A worked example: one company, more than one industry

Consider a group that manufactures batteries, operates charging infrastructure and sells energy-management software. It may not fit comfortably inside one industry standard.

The reporting team could begin with standards covering electrical and electronic equipment, engineering or technology activities, and power-related services. It would then test the topics against the group's actual revenue, assets and risks. Product energy efficiency, raw-material sourcing, lifecycle impacts, data security, workforce safety and grid relationships might all arise, but their importance would differ across business lines.

The weak response would be to choose one industry code for the whole group and complete its metrics. The stronger response is to show which standards were considered, which topics apply to each material activity and how the final disclosures were aggregated or separated. IFRS Foundation guidance warns against combining dissimilar material information in a way that obscures it.

This is where the industry lens earns its place. It prevents a diversified company from producing one smooth corporate average that conceals very different operating risks.

What good SASB use looks like

Good use is visible in the decisions around the metrics, not in the number of SASB references in the report.

The industry choice is explainable. The company can show why one or more standards match its activities.

The materiality decision is documented. Reporting teams record why topics and metrics were included, adapted or excluded.

The protocols are followed or departures are clear. A reader can understand the calculation boundary and compare periods.

The numbers connect to management decisions. Metrics are linked to risk, strategy, capital allocation, targets or operating controls rather than presented as detached statistics.

Cross-industry complexity is not hidden. Where several standards apply, the company explains how it handled overlap and disaggregation.

The evidence can survive review. Source records, owners, calculations and approvals are available for internal review or assurance.

Where SASB can go wrong

The first failure is checklist reporting. A team copies every metric into a spreadsheet, asks business units to fill the gaps and assumes the completed list equals material disclosure. It may produce more data without producing more insight.

The second is choosing the easiest industry. A broad group may select the standard with the most convenient metrics rather than the one that reflects its material activities. That weakens comparability and can leave important business lines outside the boundary.

The third is metric substitution without explanation. Companies sometimes use an internal indicator because it is already available. That may be reasonable, but the report should explain how it differs from the SASB metric and why it better represents performance.

The fourth is treating disclosure as performance. Reporting a SASB metric does not prove that performance is good. It may reveal improvement, deterioration or an unresolved exposure. The standard helps structure the evidence; it does not award a sustainability verdict.

The fifth is stale implementation. The ISSB is maintaining and enhancing the SASB Standards. A reporting process built around an old downloaded standard can miss revised metrics, international terminology or changes to IFRS S2 industry guidance.

SASB, GRI and ESRS answer different questions

SASB is often compared with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). The overlap is real, but the starting points differ.

SASB is designed around sustainability-related risks and opportunities that are useful to investors and could affect financial prospects. GRI focuses on an organisation's impacts on the economy, environment and people. ESRS uses double materiality, requiring companies in scope to consider both impacts and financial risks or opportunities.

A company may use more than one of these systems. The practical task is to map common data once, preserve the different materiality lenses and avoid pretending that one disclosure automatically satisfies every framework. Our reporting frameworks comparison maps those relationships in more detail.

The 2026 SASB update

The standards are being revised rather than frozen. The ISSB published proposals in July 2025 covering nine priority industries and related metrics in other industries. In March 2026 it proposed amendments for Agricultural Products, Meat, Poultry and Dairy, and Electric Utilities and Power Generators. Together, the consultations cover 12 priority standards and related IFRS S2 industry guidance.

The March 2026 proposals aim to align language with ISSB Standards, improve international applicability, support interoperability and keep climate content aligned with IFRS S2. The comment period closes on 24 July 2026. Until amendments are final, companies should distinguish current requirements from proposed changes.

The direction is clear even before final amendments arrive: industry-specific reporting is becoming more integrated with the global sustainability disclosure baseline. The implementation risk is no longer that SASB sits forgotten in a framework comparison. It is that companies refer to it casually without doing the industry mapping, materiality work and evidence design that make the metrics useful.

Local rules still decide when that reporting work becomes mandatory. South Korea's 2028 ESG reporting roadmap, for example, uses domestic standards based on the ISSB baseline while legislation and detailed implementation rules continue to develop.

Official sources

• IFRS Foundation: About the SASB Standards
• IFRS Foundation: Understanding SASB Standards
• IFRS Foundation: Using industry-based guidance when applying ISSB Standards
• IFRS Foundation: Enhancing the SASB Standards, current project stage
• IFRS Foundation: March 2026 proposed amendments

Bottom line

SASB gives a reporting team a disciplined starting point: choose the industries that match the business, test the topics, read the protocols and decide which information is material. ISSB reporting then asks the company to connect that industry evidence to its prospects.

The standards narrow the field. They do not make the final judgement. A strong disclosure shows both parts of the work: the industry metrics that were considered and the reasoning that turned some of them into information an investor can actually use.