Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Foundation
SASB
SASB is an independent non-profit organisation established in 2011 to set standards for companies to use when disclosing sustainability information to investors.
ID: 919658238467-83
Lobbying Activity
Response to EU single access point for financial and non-financial information publicly disclosed by companies
15 Jan 2021
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) submits this letter in response to the Inception Impact Assessment regarding financial transparency via a single EU access point for company information (Ref. Ares(2020)7748392 - 18/12/2020).
We agree that a European Single Access Point (ESAP) will help improve access to company data and contribute to the harmonization and standardization of formats of information that companies disclose to the public, making such information easier to find, compare, and analyze. We also agree that it will enable “big data” and services based on artificial intelligence and machine learning through the increased availability and use of machine-readable data.
As the Inception Impact Assessment notes, public funds alone will not be sufficient to meet the EU goals of a carbon-neutral and sustainable economy. Capital markets should be part of the solution. Sustainability-related information is key to direct investments toward projects that will support the transition to a more resilient, low-carbon economy. SASB has been engaged through the public comment process as the European Commission and the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG) revise the Non-Financial Reporting Directive to improve and expand the information disclosed by companies across the full spectrum of “double materiality.” We believe EFRAG and the EU can play a significant role in helping establish this system. By using a “building blocks” approach—like that outlined in the Statement of Intent to Work Together Towards Comprehensive Corporate Reporting recently issued by the “group of five” standard-setters and framework providers —we believe EFRAG’s efforts can help bring clarity, global consistency, and reduced complexity to a fragmented landscape.
In this regard, we respectfully submit that the SASB Standards—adopted by a board of independent private-sector experts after due process including significant stakeholder input—can play a particularly useful role in a coherent, comprehensive system of corporate disclosure. SASB has developed, and continues to refine, a comprehensive set of sustainability disclosure standards, which are focused on the information needs of capital markets and have been broadly endorsed by investors and adopted by issuers. The SASB Standards can be used globally; indeed, in 2020, more than 1500 companies referenced SASB in their reporting and over 500 companies are currently using SASB Standards in their core communications with investors in dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. To ensure that the sustainability information disclosed by companies is readily available and machine-readable, SASB has built the initial version of a XBRL taxonomy. This will allow companies to tag their sustainability information in the same way that the ESEF XBRL taxonomy helps financial information become machine-readable. The initial version of the XBRL taxonomy is currently undergoing a review and approval process by XBRL US. Once approved, SASB is planning to release the taxonomy for public comments followed by a public release. More details about our XBRL effort can be found on our website: https://www.sasb.org/structured-reporting-xbrl/.
We believe that ESAP has the potential to be the central repository of financial and non-financial company information for the EU, thereby making data readily accessible to investors and other providers of financial capital. It would eliminate the need for data aggregators and other parties to spend time finding and aggregating content from various EU members’ national repositories. The process of aggregating data from various sources today is both intensive and error prone. Instead, data consumers could use ESAP to quickly access accurate information and utilize AI to analyze the data to gain insights and allocate capital toward a more sustainable future.
Respectfully submitted,
Madhu Mathew
Director of Technology, SASB
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