SASB Industrial Machinery & Goods

1. Download the Standard: Access the SASB Industrial Machinery & Goods Standard for free via the SASB Navigator at sasb.org. No registration is required to view the standard.

1. Identify Material Topics: Review the standard's disclosure topics — Energy Management, Employee Health & Safety, Product Safety, and Supply Chain Management — and determine which are material to your company's operations.

1. Assemble Your Reporting Team: Engage sustainability, finance, legal, and investor relations teams. Assign ownership of each disclosure topic to the relevant business unit.

1. Collect Baseline Data: Gather quantitative data for each applicable accounting metric (e.g., total energy consumed, OSHA recordable incident rate, product recalls). Identify data gaps and establish collection processes.

1. Draft Disclosures: Write qualitative and quantitative disclosures aligned with SASB's technical protocols for each metric. Use the SASB Navigator's guidance notes to ensure correct methodology.

1. Consider Third-Party Assurance: While not required, engaging an external auditor to provide limited or reasonable assurance on your disclosures strengthens credibility with institutional investors.

1. Publish and Reference SASB: Include your SASB-aligned disclosures in your annual report, sustainability report, or SEC filing. Reference the SASB Industrial Machinery & Goods Standard explicitly so investors can locate the applicable framework.

1. Monitor Standard Updates: SASB periodically revises standards through public consultation. Subscribe to IFRS Foundation updates to stay current and update disclosures in subsequent reporting cycles.

The SASB Industrial Machinery & Goods Standard defines disclosure topics and associated accounting metrics across several material ESG dimensions specific to this sector. Companies report on both quantitative metrics and qualitative management approach disclosures.

Energy Management: Companies disclose total energy consumed (in gigajoules), the percentage from grid electricity, and the percentage from renewable sources. This topic addresses operational energy intensity and transition risk exposure as industrial manufacturers face increasing regulatory and investor scrutiny on carbon footprints.

Employee Health & Safety: Metrics include the OSHA Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR), fatality rate, and near-miss frequency rate. Companies also disclose the percentage of employees covered by a health and safety management system. This is a high-priority topic given the physical hazards inherent in manufacturing environments.

Product Safety: Disclosures cover the number of recalls issued and total units recalled, as well as the number of fatalities and injuries associated with product defects. Companies describe their approach to product safety testing, quality management, and post-market surveillance.

Supply Chain Management: Companies disclose the percentage of suppliers audited to a social responsibility code of conduct, and the percentage found in non-conformance. Qualitative disclosures address how the company manages risks related to labor practices, conflict minerals, and environmental compliance in its supply chain.

Fuel Economy & Emissions in Use-Phase (where applicable): For companies manufacturing engines, vehicles, or powered equipment, additional metrics may address fleet fuel economy or emissions performance of sold products, reflecting the growing importance of Scope 3 and product lifecycle impacts.

SASB standards have become one of the most widely referenced sector-specific ESG disclosure frameworks globally, particularly among institutional investors and capital markets participants. As of the mid-2020s, thousands of companies across 77 industries reference SASB in their sustainability or annual reports, with adoption concentrated among large-cap publicly traded companies in North America and Europe. The Industrial Machinery & Goods standard is used by major manufacturers including Caterpillar, Siemens, and General Electric, lending it significant credibility within the sector.

A pivotal development in SASB's market position came in 2022 when the IFRS Foundation consolidated SASB's standards into the newly formed International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). The ISSB's IFRS S1 and S2 standards explicitly incorporate SASB's industry-specific metrics as the recommended basis for sector disclosures, effectively elevating SASB from a voluntary framework to a foundational component of an emerging global baseline for sustainability reporting. This integration has substantially increased SASB's relevance in jurisdictions adopting IFRS-aligned sustainability disclosure rules, including the EU, UK, Canada, Australia, and Japan.

Compared to alternatives, SASB occupies a distinct niche: it is more investor-focused and financially material than GRI (which is broader and stakeholder-oriented), more sector-specific than TCFD (which focuses on climate risk governance), and more disclosure-oriented than ISO 14001 (which is a management system standard). Demand for SASB-aligned reporting is growing as regulators in multiple jurisdictions move toward mandatory sustainability disclosure requirements that reference ISSB/SASB metrics. The primary challenge is that SASB is a reporting framework, not a certification with a verifiable seal, which limits its utility for companies seeking public-facing sustainability credentials.

SASB — the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board — was founded in 2011 by Jean Rogers in San Francisco, California, with a mission to develop industry-specific sustainability accounting standards that help businesses disclose financially material ESG information to investors. Modeled loosely on the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), SASB was designed to bring the same rigor and comparability to sustainability reporting that GAAP brought to financial reporting. The organization spent its first several years conducting extensive industry research and stakeholder engagement, publishing provisional standards across 79 industries (later consolidated to 77) between 2012 and 2016, with the full codified suite of standards released in 2018.

A landmark moment came in 2019 when SASB merged with the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) to form the Value Reporting Foundation (VRF), signaling growing convergence in the global sustainability reporting landscape. In 2022, the VRF — and with it, SASB's standards — was consolidated into the IFRS Foundation, which had established the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) the prior year at COP26. The ISSB formally incorporated SASB's industry-based metrics into its IFRS S1 general requirements standard, cementing SASB's role as the sector-specific backbone of the emerging global sustainability disclosure baseline. The Industrial Machinery & Goods standard has remained substantively stable since its 2018 codification, with minor technical updates managed through the IFRS Foundation's standard-setting process.