CLIMATE CPA

Sustainability reporting is an organization's practice of reporting publicly on its economic, environmental, and/or social impacts, and hence its contributions – positive or negative – towards the goal of sustainable development.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria are a set of standards for a company's operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments.

Environmental criteria: Consider how a company performs as a steward of nature.

Social Criteria: Examine how it manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where it operates.

Governance: Deals with a company's leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.

Recognizing that a large amount of corporate performance information was not being captured in financial statements, companies began experimenting with efforts to measure non-financial value drivers and produce a more holistic picture of their performance.

Sustainable reporting and ESG can mean different things, however, the two terms are often interchangeable and are often used as part of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) of a company. Many companies and standards that refer to 'ESG' might use a broader or slightly different set of sustainability dimensions than ESG.

The SASB Conceptual Framework sets out the basic concepts, principles, definitions, and objectives that guide SASB in its approach to setting standards for sustainability accounting; it provides an overview of sustainability accounting, describing its objectives and audience.

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SASB Standards identify the subset of environmental, social, and governance issues most relevant to financial performance in each of 77 industries. SASB Standards enable businesses to identify, manage and communicate financially-material sustainability information to their investors.

GRI are a set of standards created by the GSSB (Global Sustainability Standards Board). Sustainability reporting based on the GRI Standards should provide a balanced and reasonable representation of an organization's positive and negative contributions towards the goal of sustainable development. The information made available through sustainability reporting allows internal and external stakeholders to form opinions and to make informed decisions about an organization's contribution to the goal of sustainable development. GRI Reports are for any interested stakeholders, not only investors.