A Preliminary Analysis of SASB Reporting: Disclosure Topics, Financial Relevance, and the Financial Intensity of ESG Materiality

Abstract

At the end of 2018, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) released the codified version of its standard that established measurement and reporting criteria for companies’ material environment, social, and governance (ESG) issues. By introducing the concept of financial relevance of materiality, we present an analysis of the quality of reporting of the companies that adopted SASB’s framework in their 2019 non-financial reports. While the number of companies reporting according to SASB’s standards is still small, our results are encouraging, showing, on average, good to very good quality of reporting.

Keywords: ESG materiality, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, SASB, financial relevance of ESG materiality, financial intensity of ESG materiality, compliance, disclosure, corporate reporting

JEL Classification: M14,