Sustainability Adviser Alert

ISSB publishes amendments to enhance international applicability of SASB standards.

The SASB standards consist of 77 industry-based sustainability-related disclosure standards and include over 1,000 metrics. While the ISSB has not developed the standards, it has been responsible for the maintenance and enhancement of the SASB standards since the consolidation of the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF) with the IFRS Foundation in August 2022.

The SASB standards are required to be considered when applying IFRS S1 General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information and IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures, when evaluating sustainability-related risks and opportunities in the absence of another IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standard. Therefore, it is important for the SASB standards to be globally appropriate. Prior to these amendments, the SASB standards contained certain references to jurisdiction-specific laws and regulations, which were not globally applicable.

The amendments

The ISSB split the project into two parts, resulting in two sets of changes. It initially published amendments in June 2023 to address the climate-related disclosure topics covered within IFRS S2. The additional amendments, published in December 2023, aim to remove the jurisdiction-specific references from non-climate related disclosure topics and metrics to assist reporting entities when applying IFRS S1. There are approximately 650 non-climate related metrics and, from these, 220 metrics are impacted by these revisions.

Consult the Advisor Alert.