SASB Commercial Banks

1. Download the Standard: Access the SASB Commercial Banks standard for free at sasb.org using the SASB Navigator tool. Review the full list of disclosure topics and associated metrics specific to the commercial banking industry.

1. Conduct a Materiality Assessment: Identify which of the SASB-defined sustainability topics are financially material to your institution. Key topics include Data Security, Financial Inclusion & Capacity Building, Incorporation of ESG Factors in Credit Analysis, Business Ethics, and Systemic Risk Management.

1. Assemble a Cross-Functional Team: Engage stakeholders from ESG/sustainability, investor relations, risk management, compliance, IT security, and finance to gather the data required for each applicable metric.

1. Map Existing Data to SASB Metrics: Audit your current data collection processes to identify gaps between what you already track and what SASB requires. Many metrics align with existing regulatory reporting (e.g., CRA data for financial inclusion).

1. Prepare Disclosures: Draft quantitative and qualitative disclosures for each applicable metric. Use SASB's technical protocols for precise definitions and calculation methodologies to ensure comparability.

1. Choose a Reporting Vehicle: Decide where to publish your SASB-aligned disclosures — options include your annual report, standalone sustainability/ESG report, SEC filings (10-K or proxy), or a dedicated SASB Index.

1. Consider Third-Party Assurance: While not required by SASB, many major banks engage external assurance providers to verify disclosures, which increases credibility with investors and ratings agencies.

1. Monitor Standard Updates: Track updates from the IFRS Foundation and ISSB, which now maintain and evolve the SASB Standards, and update your disclosures accordingly each reporting cycle.

The SASB Commercial Banks standard defines disclosure requirements across six core sustainability topics, each with specific quantitative and qualitative metrics:

Data Security: Metrics cover the number of data breaches, the percentage involving personally identifiable information (PII), and a description of approach to identifying and addressing data security risks. This reflects the growing materiality of cybersecurity incidents in banking.

Financial Inclusion & Capacity Building: Disclosures include the number and amount of loans to underserved communities, the number of participants in financial literacy initiatives, and the percentage of revenue from products designed for underserved segments. This topic addresses the social role of banks in expanding access to financial services.

Incorporation of ESG Factors in Credit Analysis: Organizations describe their approach to integrating ESG factors into credit risk assessments and the percentage of loans reviewed under ESG criteria. This is increasingly relevant given climate-related credit risk.

Business Ethics: Metrics include the total amount of monetary losses from legal proceedings associated with fraud, insider trading, anti-trust, anti-competitive behavior, market manipulation, malpractice, and other financial industry laws or regulations.

Systemic Risk Management: Disclosures cover global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) score by category, and a description of approach to incorporation of results of mandatory and voluntary stress tests into capital adequacy planning and general risk management.

Activity Metrics: Supporting context metrics include total assets, total loans and lease financing receivables, and number of loans by segment — providing the denominator context needed to normalize other disclosures for peer comparison.

SASB Standards have become one of the most widely referenced ESG disclosure frameworks globally, particularly among institutional investors and publicly traded companies in the United States. As of the early 2020s, thousands of companies across 77 industries had adopted SASB standards, with the financial sector — including commercial banks — representing one of the highest-adoption segments. Major global banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs publish SASB-aligned disclosures, lending significant credibility to the framework.

The 2022 consolidation of SASB into the IFRS Foundation and its integration with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) marked a pivotal milestone. The ISSB's inaugural standards (IFRS S1 and S2, released in 2023) explicitly reference SASB metrics as the basis for industry-specific disclosures, effectively elevating SASB from a voluntary U.S.-centric framework to a foundational component of the emerging global baseline for sustainability reporting. This dramatically increases the long-term relevance and adoption trajectory of SASB standards, particularly for multinational banks subject to evolving regulatory requirements in the EU, UK, and beyond.

Compared to alternatives, SASB's key differentiator is its investor-first, financially material approach — it is designed to surface ESG information that affects enterprise value, rather than broad stakeholder impact reporting (as GRI emphasizes). For commercial banks specifically, SASB competes with GRI's financial sector standards, TCFD recommendations (now embedded in IFRS S2), and CDP's financial services questionnaire. However, SASB's integration into ISSB gives it a structural advantage as regulatory frameworks in major jurisdictions increasingly reference ISSB standards as their baseline.

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) was founded in 2011 by Jean Rogers in San Francisco, with a mission to develop industry-specific sustainability accounting standards that help public companies disclose financially material ESG information to investors. Modeled loosely on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), SASB took a sector-by-sector approach, developing standards for 77 industries across 11 sectors. The Commercial Banks standard was among the first financial sector standards developed, reflecting the industry's systemic importance and the materiality of ESG factors like data security and systemic risk in banking.

SASB published its full suite of 77 industry standards in 2018 after years of research, industry consultation, and public comment periods. In 2019, SASB merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to form the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF). A further consolidation occurred in 2022 when the VRF was absorbed into the IFRS Foundation, placing SASB standards under the stewardship of the newly formed International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The ISSB's landmark IFRS S1 and S2 standards, published in June 2023, formally incorporated SASB's industry-specific metrics as the recommended basis for sector-level disclosures, cementing SASB's role as the de facto global standard for industry-specific sustainability reporting.