SASB Adds Second Public Comment Period for Financials Sector Sustainability Accounting Standards

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™, a 501c3 non-profit organization that provides sustainability accounting standards for use by publicly listed corporations in the U.S., today announced a second period of comment for standards pertaining to industries in the Financials sector, which encompasses seven industries. Any member of the public can comment on the draft provisional standards in a 45-day comment period open from November 15 through December 27, 2013.

SASB opens each set of standards for 80-plus industries in 10 sectors to public comment. In response to stakeholder feedback, SASB gradually lengthened the period of public comment from 30 to 45 to 90 days.   

The working groups for the Financials sector, convened in February 2013, resulted in 302 survey responses from members representing publicly traded companies with more than $1.3 trillion market capital and investment firms with more than $5 trillion in assets under management. The initial comment period for industries in this sector was held in May 2013 for 45 days. However, as the extent of changes undertaken since the initial public comment has been significant, SASB has decided to re-expose the standards for a second period of comment.

"As an ANSI-accredited standards setting organization, SASB is committed to a transparent, inclusive, multi-stakeholder process," says Dr. Jean Rogers, Founder and Executive Director of SASB. "Given the high volume of informal and formal feedback we've received on this particular set of standards, we believe our stakeholders would appreciate another opportunity to comment on the standards before they are finalized."

SASB's Standards Council—an independent oversight body comprised of experts in standards development, securities law and accounting—advised SASB to re-expose the standards.

Jerome Lavigne-Delville, Director of Standards Development, said, "SASB standards are designed to be cost-effective for issuers and decision-useful for investors.  By holding a second comment period for standards for industries in the Financials sector—a sector with a particularly complex set of sustainability issues—SASB hopes to collect the final input necessary to finalize standards that accomplish these objectives."

Following the public comment period, the provisional set of standards for industries in the Financials sector will be issued on February 25, 2014.

For more information about SASB, please visit www.sasb.org.

About SASB 
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™ is an independent 501(c)3 organization that establishes and maintains industry-specific standards for use in disclosing material sustainability issues in annual filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. 850 survey responses, from individuals representing $12T assets under management and $5T market capital, have been collected for standards development for four sectors to date.  For more information about SASB, visit www.sasb.org, or follow us on YouTube, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Contact: Michael Boonshoft, 1-212-994-7538, [email protected]

SOURCE Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)