28 September 2021

Release of SASB Standards XBRL Taxonomy Accelerates Structured Reporting of ESG Data

Key objectives of the Taxonomy are to simplify the disclosure process for businesses and improve the quality,usefulness and comparability of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures to investors.

The Value Reporting Foundation today announced the formal release of the SASB Standards XBRL Taxonomy. The organization engaged PwC to support in the initial development of a SASB XBRL Taxonomy to facilitate reporting in accordance with its 77 Industry Standards using structured data.

“The addition of XBRL as the international standard for digital reporting to sustainability
information accelerates the accessibility and useability of reporting," said Wes Bricker, PwC US
Vice Chair - Trust Solutions Co-Leader. "We're proud of the role PwC played in helping to deliver
this taxonomy and, as a result, an enhanced degree of data-driven decision-making to the
market."

The standard-setter announced its engagement with PwC to help develop the initial draft of the
XBRL Taxonomy in October 2020, and an exposure draft of the Taxonomy was released for a
60-day public comment in March 2021. After making technical adjustments and corrections
based on feedback received, the Taxonomy is now ready for public use. The Value Reporting
Foundation will work with software providers and issuers to provide examples of SASB
Standards disclosures tagged with XBRL tags.

“The SASB Standards XBRL Taxonomy is a major step forward in making ESG disclosures
simpler for businesses and data aggregation and analytics more efficient for investors,” said
Madhu Mathew, Director of Technology at the Value Reporting Foundation. “Because the SASB
Standards XBRL Taxonomy is compatible with base taxonomies for financial reporting
standards (like IFRS and US GAAP), businesses can leverage pre-existing processes and
structures for use in tagging SASB disclosures. Similarly, many corporate reporting software
providers and auditors already have technology for collecting and reporting data in XBRL format
and can apply these processes to ESG data.”

As part of the launch of the SASB Standards XBRL Taxonomy, the Value Reporting Foundation
is announcing the creation of an XBRL Taxonomy Review Committee (TRC) to help govern the
ongoing maintenance of the taxonomy. The TRC will be comprised of volunteer experts from
leading public companies, software providers, data aggregators, audit professionals, regulators,
and/or other interested parties. By engaging broad market participation across the data
production to data consumption spectrum, the TRC will help ensure the Taxonomy evolves to
continue meeting the needs of the market

The publication of the SASB Standards XBRL Taxonomy comes amidst increasing use of SASB
Standards by businesses around the world. More than 1,280 businesses now disclose ESG data
using SASB Standards, including more than half of the S&P1200 Global Index constituents.

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