Back in February, we announced that SASB would be adopting a two-tiered governance model with separation of financial responsibilities from the standards-setting activities. After spending the past few months implementing changes necessary to the transition, we are now operating in the two-tier structure.
In the new model, a 501(c)3 organisation called the SASB Foundation is responsible for finances, governance, and providing the market with education and resources that advance the field of sustainability accounting. The group formerly known as the SASB Board of Directors became the SASB Foundation Board of Directors. Michael Bloomberg remains the Chair of the SASB Foundation and Mary Schapiro and Bob Steel remain Vice Chairs.The SASB Foundation delegates authority for standards setting to the SASB, a newly appointed Standards Board.
Today, the SASB Foundation Board of Directors announced the nine new members of the SASB Standards Board. The SASB Standards Board members were carefully selected to represent a diversity of key perspectives, including standards-setting, corporate reporting, and investing and financial analysis. The role of the SASB Standards Board is to adopt the standards, review and maintain the Technical Agenda, make proposed updates to the standards, and have overall responsibility for the standards-setting process. To learn more about this process, please read the SASB Rules of Procedure.
To support the new governance structure, we’ve made some leadership transitions. Dr. Jean Rogers, Founder and Former CEO of SASB, has been appointed as the full-time Chair of the SASB Standards Board. Matthew Welch, former COO of SASB, is now President of the SASB Foundation.
The new two-tiered structure is designed to strengthen the rigor and independence of SASB’s standards-setting process.