SASB Meat, Poultry & Dairy

1. Identify your industry classification: Confirm your company operates in the Meat, Poultry & Dairy sector as defined by SASB's Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS). SASB code is FB-MP for Meat, Poultry & Dairy.

1. Download the standard: Access the SASB Meat, Poultry & Dairy standard for free at sasb.org. The standard document details all disclosure topics and associated accounting metrics.

1. Conduct a materiality review: Review SASB's materiality map to understand which of the standard's topics are most financially material to your specific business model and value chain.

1. Perform a gap analysis: Compare your current sustainability data collection and reporting practices against the SASB metrics. Identify where data is available, where collection processes need to be built, and where gaps exist.

1. Build internal data systems: Work with operations, environmental health & safety, procurement, and finance teams to establish data collection processes for metrics such as GHG emissions (Scope 1 & 2), water withdrawal, antibiotic use intensity, and animal welfare policies.

1. Prepare your disclosures: Draft SASB-aligned disclosures using the standard's prescribed units of measure and calculation methodologies. Disclosures are typically included in annual sustainability reports, integrated reports, or SEC filings (e.g., 10-K).

1. Consider third-party assurance: While not required by SASB, engaging an independent assurance provider to verify your disclosures strengthens credibility with investors and ESG rating agencies.

1. Publish and register: Publish your SASB-aligned disclosures and optionally register your company's use of SASB standards on the SASB website to signal adoption to the investor community.

The SASB Meat, Poultry & Dairy standard identifies six primary disclosure topic areas that are considered financially material to companies in this sector. Companies report quantitative metrics and qualitative policies against each topic.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Companies disclose gross global Scope 1 emissions (metric tons CO2-e), the percentage covered under emissions-limiting regulations, and a discussion of long-term and short-term strategy or plan to manage Scope 1 emissions. This topic reflects the significant methane and nitrous oxide emissions from livestock operations and processing facilities.

Air Quality: Disclosure of air emissions of pollutants including NOx, SOx, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter from processing operations, measured in metric tons.

Energy Management: Total energy consumed, percentage from grid electricity, and percentage from renewable sources. This reflects the energy intensity of meat processing and refrigeration operations.

Water Management: Total water withdrawn and total water consumed (cubic meters), with breakdowns by region and water stress category. Companies also disclose the number of incidents of non-compliance with water quality permits.

Food Safety: Disclosure of the number of recalls issued and total units recalled, the number of regulatory agency inspections and corrective action plans, and the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) audit conformance rate across processing facilities.

Antibiotic Use in Livestock Operations: Total antibiotic drugs used by class (in kilograms), the percentage of livestock that received antibiotics, and the percentage of livestock that received antibiotics important to human medicine. This topic addresses growing concerns about antimicrobial resistance.

Animal Care & Welfare: A description of the company's policies and practices related to the physical and behavioral needs of animals, including third-party auditing programs used and the percentage of suppliers certified to animal welfare standards.

Labor Practices: Total recordable incident rate (TRIR), fatality rate, and near-miss frequency rate for processing facility workers — reflecting the historically high injury rates in meat processing environments.

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 for their sustainability reporting, with adoption particularly strong among large-cap publicly traded companies in North America and increasingly in Europe and Asia-Pacific. The 2022 consolidation of SASB into the IFRS Foundation and the subsequent launch of the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) significantly elevated SASB's global standing, as ISSB standards explicitly build on SASB's industry-specific metrics as the foundation for sector-level guidance.

In the food and agriculture sector specifically, SASB's Meat, Poultry & Dairy standard competes with GRI's food-related sector standards and CDP's supply chain disclosure program, but occupies a distinct niche as the investor-facing, financially material disclosure framework. Major institutional investors including BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street have explicitly encouraged or required portfolio companies to report using SASB standards, creating strong top-down pressure on large meat and dairy companies to adopt the framework. Companies like Tyson Foods, JBS, Danone, and Nestlé have publicly disclosed using SASB standards in their sustainability reporting.

The relevance of the Meat, Poultry & Dairy standard is growing due to several converging trends: increasing regulatory pressure on Scope 1 GHG disclosures (particularly methane from livestock), heightened investor scrutiny of antibiotic resistance risks, and growing consumer and NGO pressure on animal welfare practices. The SEC's climate disclosure rules in the U.S. and the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) are accelerating adoption of structured ESG reporting frameworks, benefiting SASB. However, the framework's voluntary, self-attestation nature means adoption quality varies significantly, and critics note the absence of mandatory third-party verification limits comparability across companies.

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 businesses disclose financially material ESG information to investors. Modeled on the approach of financial accounting standards bodies, SASB sought to bring rigor and comparability to sustainability reporting by identifying the subset of ESG issues most likely to affect the financial condition or operating performance of companies within specific industries.

The Meat, Poultry & Dairy standard was developed through SASB's multi-stakeholder standard-setting process, which involved industry working groups, investor input, and public comment periods. A provisional version was released in 2014, with the full codified standard published in 2018 as part of SASB's complete library of 77 industry standards. A significant milestone came in 2022 when SASB merged with the Value Reporting Foundation (which also housed the Integrated Reporting Framework) and was subsequently consolidated into the IFRS Foundation. The ISSB, launched at COP26 in November 2021, incorporated SASB's industry-specific metrics as the basis for its sector-level disclosure requirements, effectively giving SASB standards a pathway to becoming part of the global baseline for sustainability disclosure. SASB standards continue to be maintained and updated by the IFRS Foundation's ISSB.