[January 08, 2013]

SASB Earns Accreditation by American National Standards Institute

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™ recently achieved accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), demonstrating SASB's commitment to a standards-setting process that is accessible, transparent and responsive to today's market needs.

ANSI facilitates the development of American National Standards (ANS (News - Alert)) by accrediting the procedures of standards-developing organizations. ANSI accreditation signifies that the procedures used by the standards body meet requirements for openness, balance, consensus and due process.

"ANSI accreditation validates our role in creating much-needed industry-specific standards as we focus on understanding and accounting for relevant sustainability issues at the industry level, in order that environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance can be measured, managed and disclosed," says Dr. Jean Rogers, SASB Executive Director.

The approval comes weeks before SASB's new Standards Council will convene for its inaugural meeting. The independent Council-comprised of experts in standards development, securities law, environmental law, metrics and accounting-will oversee the development of SASB's sustainability accounting standards. The Standards Council is charged with reviewing due process and quality of outcomes, as well as ultimately recommending the standards for use in the Form 10-K.

"For years, our investor members have called on companies to discose and analysts to assess sustainability risks and opportunities. But the lack of standard disclosure expectations has made for slow progress," says Mindy Lubber, President of Ceres and Director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. "SASB's work will help investors assess a corporation's true value in a way that's just not possible today." Anne Simpson, Senior Portfolio Manager and Director for Corporate Governance for CalPERS, adds: "SASB will provide investors with something they vitally need: standardized information on material ESG factors alongside financial information."

Steve Lydenberg, Fellow of the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University and member of SASB's Board of Directors, will serve as interim Chair until a permanent chair is elected at the inaugural meeting. SASB's recently named Director of Standards Development, Jerome Lavigne-Delville, will serve as the Council liaison. Jerome has nearly 15 years of experience in corporate law, investment banking and social responsibility and most recently served as a Program Officer at the United Nations Global Compact.

Standards Council members include:

Jim Coburn, JD, Senior Manager of Investor Programs, Ceres

Christine Ervin, former President and CEO, U.S. Green Building Council

Jeffrey Hales, PhD, Associate Professor of Accounting, Georgia Tech

Tom Kiely, former Director of Sustainability, McKinsey & Company (News - Alert)

Gayle Koch, Principal, Axlor Consulting LLC

Stephen Linaweaver, Principal, Blu Skye

Steve Lydenberg, CFA, SASB Board of Directors and Interim Standards Council Chairman

Andrew Park, JD, PhD, Bloomberg Philanthropies

Jameela Pedicini, Investment Officer, CalPERS

Patricia Farrar Rivas, CIMA (News - Alert), CIS, CEO and Chief Compliance Officer, Veris Wealth Partners

C. Gregory Rogers, JD, CPA, President, Advanced Environmental Dimensions, LLC

Jean Rogers, PhD, Executive Director, SASB (ex-officio)

Elizabeth Seeger, Principal, KKR

George Serafeim, PhD, Assistant Professor of Business Management, Harvard University

Katherine Schipper, PhD, Thomas F. Keller Professor, Duke University

Jeremy Shapiro, Executive Director, Morgan Stanley

Nigel Topping, Chief Development Officer, Carbon Disclosure Project

About SASB

Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™ is an independent 501(c)3 organization that will establish and maintain industry-tailored key performance indicators for use in disclosing material sustainability issues for the benefit of investors, corporations and the public. For more information about SASB, visit www.sasb.org, or follow us on YouTube, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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