SASB Electric Utilities & Power Generators

1. Identify Applicability: Confirm your organization operates in the Electric Utilities & Power Generators sector (SICS code IF0102). Visit the SASB Standards Navigator at sasb.org to access the free standard document for this industry.

1. Download the Standard: Access the SASB Electric Utilities & Power Generators standard at no cost via the SASB Navigator tool. Review the full list of disclosure topics and associated accounting metrics.

1. Conduct a Materiality Assessment: Map the SASB-defined topics — such as GHG emissions, water management, grid reliability, and workforce safety — against your organization's operations to determine which metrics are most material.

1. Assemble Your Reporting Team: Engage sustainability, finance, legal, and investor relations teams. Assign data owners for each metric category. Consider engaging an external ESG consultant if internal expertise is limited.

1. Collect and Validate Data: Gather quantitative and qualitative data aligned with SASB's defined units of measure and boundaries. This typically covers a 12-month reporting period. Ensure data quality controls are in place.

1. Draft Disclosures: Incorporate SASB-aligned metrics into your annual sustainability report, integrated report, or SEC filing (e.g., 10-K). Reference the SASB standard explicitly to signal alignment to investors.

1. Consider Third-Party Assurance: While optional, engaging an independent assurance provider to verify disclosed data significantly enhances credibility with institutional investors and ESG rating agencies.

1. Monitor for Updates: Track revisions from the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board), which has incorporated SASB standards into IFRS S1/S2. Update disclosures annually and adjust for any standard revisions.

The SASB Electric Utilities & Power Generators standard defines disclosure topics and quantitative metrics across six primary sustainability dimensions material to this sector.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions & Energy Resource Planning: Organizations disclose Scope 1 gross global GHG emissions, percentage covered by emissions-limiting regulations, and GHG emissions associated with power deliveries. This category also covers the organization's strategy for managing GHG emissions and transitioning its energy mix.

Air Quality: Metrics include air emissions of NOx, SOx, particulate matter, lead, and mercury — key pollutants regulated under environmental law and material to operational risk.

Water Management: Disclosures cover total water withdrawn and consumed, percentage in regions with high or extremely high baseline water stress, and the number of incidents of non-compliance with water quality permits.

Coal Ash Management: Organizations report the total weight of coal combustion residuals (CCR) generated and recycled, the number of coal ash containment sites, and any incidents of non-compliance with CCR regulations.

Grid Resiliency & Energy Reliability: Metrics include the number and duration of electric service interruptions (SAIDI, SAIFI), the percentage of electric load served by smart grid technology, and capital expenditures in grid hardening and resiliency.

Workforce Health & Safety: Disclosures include total recordable incident rate (TRIR), fatality rate, and near-miss frequency rate for both employees and contractors — critical given the hazardous nature of power generation operations.

Each metric is accompanied by SASB's defined unit of measure, boundaries, and compilation guidance to ensure comparability across reporting organizations.

SASB standards have become one of the most widely referenced ESG disclosure frameworks among institutional investors globally. As of the early 2020s, thousands of companies across 77 industries had adopted SASB standards, with particularly strong uptake in the United States among publicly traded companies. The Electric Utilities & Power Generators standard is among the more mature and heavily used sector standards, given the energy sector's prominence in ESG risk discussions and the intensity of investor scrutiny on climate-related exposures.

The 2022 consolidation of SASB into the IFRS Foundation and the subsequent integration of SASB metrics into the ISSB's IFRS S1 and S2 standards significantly elevated the framework's global credibility and reach. This move effectively positioned SASB-aligned disclosures as the building blocks of an emerging global baseline for sustainability reporting. Regulators in jurisdictions including the EU (via ESRS cross-references), the UK, and increasingly Asia-Pacific have signaled alignment with ISSB standards, further expanding SASB's relevance beyond North America.

In the electric utilities sector specifically, SASB competes for mindshare with GRI (which is broader and more stakeholder-oriented), CDP (which focuses on climate and water questionnaires), and TCFD (which emphasizes climate risk governance). However, SASB's industry-specific, investor-grade metrics give it a distinct advantage for capital markets communication. Many large utilities now report against multiple frameworks simultaneously, using SASB for investor-facing disclosures and GRI for broader stakeholder reporting. Demand for SASB expertise is growing, driven by SEC climate disclosure rules, investor stewardship expectations from BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, and the proliferation of ESG ratings that draw on SASB-aligned data.

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 would be useful to investors and comparable across companies. Modeled loosely on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), SASB set out to create a set of standards covering all major industries — ultimately producing 77 industry-specific standards organized across 11 sectors. The Electric Utilities & Power Generators standard was among the first cohort developed, reflecting the sector's material exposure to environmental and regulatory risks.

SASB published its full suite of provisional standards in 2018 following years of industry working groups, public comment periods, and investor consultations. In 2019, SASB merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to form the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF). A landmark consolidation followed in 2022, when the VRF — and with it, SASB's standards — was absorbed into the IFRS Foundation, placing SASB under the stewardship of the newly formed International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The ISSB formally incorporated SASB's industry-based metrics into its IFRS S1 standard (General Requirements) as a reference for identifying material sustainability topics, cementing SASB's role as the industry-specific backbone of the emerging global sustainability reporting baseline.