SAN FRANCISCO, June 30, 2015 /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 issued
provisional standards for seven industries in the Consumption I
sector. SASB standards help companies manage and disclose the
sustainability issues that are likely to have a material impact on
the company.
SASB's provisional standards in this sector address
sustainability disclosure topics relevant for companies in the
following industries:
- Agricultural Products
- Meat, Poultry & Dairy
- Processed Foods
- Non-Alcoholic Beverages
- Alcoholic Beverages
- Tobacco
- Household & Personal Products
Example disclosure topics include food safety, labelling &
marketing integrity, climate change adaptation, and supply chain
management. The standards average six topics per industry, and
71 percent of metrics are quantitative.
"As Consumption industries produce many basic necessities,
there's an inherent tension between the resource-intensity of their
operations and the need to produce food, beverages, and household
products for a growing population," says Dr. Jean Rogers, Founder and CEO of SASB. "SASB
standards help companies in these industries manage issues
including water scarcity, packaging, and climate impacts such as
crop yield and commodity prices."
"SASB's efforts to define, develop and propagate sustainability
accounting standards is a key step in enabling corporations to
disclose material, decision-useful information to investors," said
Todd Camp, Senior Director for
Corporate Social Responsibility at The Hershey Company. "The
process is rigorous and founded on evidence-based research and
broad, balanced stakeholder participation, which is critical to
facilitating an understanding of the relevancy between disclosing
non-financial metrics and overall business strategy and
performance."
Due to a large number of industries, SASB has divided the
Consumption sector into two parts, Consumption I (industries
focused on staples manufacturing) and Consumption II (consumer
goods and retailing). The Consumption II standards will be issued
in September 2015.
SASB's standards development process is rooted in evidence and
shaped by consensus. The working groups for Consumption I
industries, which included 271 registrants represented publicly
traded companies with $1.5 trillion
market capitalization and investment firms with $8.1 trillion in assets under management.
SASB standards remain provisional for at least one year after
the issuance date. To provide feedback at any time, please visit
SASB's public comment portal.
About SASB
The Sustainability Accounting Standards
Board™ (SASB)™ is an independent 501(c)3 organization that issues
industry-specific standards for use in disclosing material
sustainability information in filings to the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP,
and Mary Schapiro, former SEC chairman, serve as chair and vice
chair of SASB's Board of Directors, and Dr. Jean Rogers serves as
Founder and CEO. More than 2,800 individuals representing $23.4T
assets under management and $11T market capital have participated
in multi-stakeholder industry working groups informing standards
development. For more information about SASB, visit www.sasb.org,
or follow us on YouTube, Twitter or LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Jill
Metzger, (212) 994-7542, jill.metzger@rfbinder.com
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SOURCE Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)