A Preliminary Analysis of SASB Reporting: Disclosure Topics, Financial
Relevance, and the Financial Intensity of ESG Materiality
Robert G. Eccles
author FollowSustainability
Tenured Harvard Business School professor, now at Oxford University.
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.
Robert G. Eccles of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford is the author of a number of books on integrated reporting, sustainability and the role of business in society. His focus is on sustainability from both a company and investor perspective. Professor Eccles is also involved in a variety of initiatives to embed environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues in real world decision making. One of these is the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), of which he was the founding chairman. In 2018, Professor Eccles was selected by Barron’s as one of the top 20 influencers on ESG investing.
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