Industry Comparison

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Current language: English (2023)

You are viewing information about the following Industries:

  • Investment Banking & Brokerage Investment Banking & Brokerage industry entities perform a wide range of functions in the capital markets, including raising and allocating capital and providing market-making and advisory services for corporations, financial institutions, governments and high net-worth individuals. Specific activities include financial advisory and securities underwriting services conducted on a fee basis; securities and commodities brokerage activities, which involve buying and selling securities or commodities contracts and options on a commission or fee basis; and trading and principal investment activities, which involve the buying and selling of equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities and other securities for client-driven and proprietary trading. Investment banks also originate and securitise loans for infrastructure and other projects. Entities in the industry generate revenues from global markets and, therefore, are exposed to various regulatory regimes. The industry continues to face regulatory pressure to reform and disclose aspects of operations that present systemic risks. Specifically, entities are facing new capital requirements, stress testing, limits on proprietary trading and increased scrutiny over compensation practices.
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  • Automobiles Automobiles industry entities manufacture passenger vehicles, light trucks and motorcycles. Industry players design, build and sell vehicles that use a range of traditional and alternative fuels and powertrains. They sell these vehicles to dealers for consumer retail sales as well as sell directly to fleet customers, including car rental and leasing entities, commercial fleets and governments. Because of the industry’s global nature, nearly all entities have manufacturing facilities, assembly plants and service locations in several countries around the world. The Automobiles industry is concentrated, with a few large manufacturers and a diversified supply chain. Given the industry’s reliance on natural resources and sensitivity to the business cycle, revenue is typically cyclical.
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Relevant Issues for both Industries (7 of 26)

Why are some issues greyed out? The SASB Standards vary by industry based on the different sustainability-related risks and opportunities within an industry. The issues in grey were not identified during the standard-setting process as the most likely to be useful to investors, so they are not included in the Standard. Over time, as the ISSB continues to receive market feedback, some issues may be added or removed from the Standard. Each company determines which sustainability-related risks and opportunities are relevant to its business. The Standard is designed for the typical company in an industry, but individual companies may choose to report on different sustainability-related risks and opportunities based on their unique business model.

Disclosure Topics

What is the relationship between General Issue Category and Disclosure Topics? The General Issue Category is an industry-agnostic version of the Disclosure Topics that appear in each SASB Standard. Disclosure topics represent the industry-specific impacts of General Issue Categories. The industry-specific Disclosure Topics ensure each SASB Standard is tailored to the industry, while the General Issue Categories enable comparability across industries. For example, Health & Nutrition is a disclosure topic in the Non-Alcoholic Beverages industry, representing an industry-specific measure of the general issue of Customer Welfare. The issue of Customer Welfare, however, manifests as the Counterfeit Drugs disclosure topic in the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals industry.
  • Investment Banking & Brokerage Remove
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    • Product Quality & Safety The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.
      None
    • Labour Practices The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labour standards in the workplace, including compliance with labour laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labour, forced or bonded labour, exploitative labour, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labour and freedom of association.
      None
    • Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the bases of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and other factors.
      • Employee Diversity & Inclusion Entities in the Investment Banking & Brokerage industry face significant competition for skilled employees. As the industry continues to undergo rapid innovation through the introduction of more complex financial products and computerised algorithmic and high-frequency trading, material concerns such as profitability are more likely to determine the ability of entities to attract and retain skilled employees. By ensuring gender and racial diversity throughout the organisation, entities may expand their candidate pool, which may reduce hiring costs and improve operational efficiency. Evidence also suggests that entities with more diverse groups of employees may reduce risk-taking among employees involved in risk-prone trading activities (for example, trading), which may reduce the entity’s overall risk exposure. Entities with more diverse workforces may, therefore, be better able to attract skilled labour, adapt to advancements in technology and safeguard employee well-being.
    • Product Design & Lifecycle Management The category addresses incorporation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.
      • Incorporation of Environmental, Social, and Governance Factors in Investment Banking & Brokerage Activities Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors may have material impacts on the entities assets and projects across a range of industries to which investment banks provide services or in which they invest. Therefore, by accounting for these factors in underwriting, advisory, investing and lending activities, investment banks may manage significant positive and negative environmental and social externalities effectively. The potential for both value creation and loss associated with ESG factors suggests that investment banking and brokerage entities have a responsibility to shareholders and clients to consider these factors when analysing and valuing core products, including sell-side research, advisory services, origination, underwriting and principal transactions. Investment banking and brokerage entities that fail to manage these risks and opportunities effectively may expose themselves to increased reputational and financial risks. Appropriately pricing ESG risks may reduce investment banks’ financial risk exposure, help generate additional revenue or open new market opportunities. To help investors better understand how entities in the industry manage these issues, investment banks should disclose how they incorporate ESG factors in their core products and services.
    • Materials Sourcing & Efficiency The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.
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    • Business Ethics The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behaviour that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.
      • Business Ethics The regulatory environment surrounding the Investment Banking & Brokerage industry continues to evolve internationally. Entities must adhere to a complex and often inconsistent set of rules relating to performance and conduct, as well as provide disclosure on issues including insider trading, antitrust behaviour, price fixing and market manipulation. Entities are subject to strict legal requirements against tax evasion, fraud, money laundering and corrupt practices. In some jurisdictions, enhanced rewards for whistle-blowers may increase the number of complaints brought to regulators. Entities that ensure regulatory compliance through robust internal controls may build trust with clients, increase revenue and protect shareholder value by minimising losses incurred because of legal proceedings.
      • Professional Integrity The success of entities in the Investment Banking & Brokerage industry is dependent on cultivating client trust and loyalty. To ensure long-term, mutually beneficial relationships, entities must provide services that satisfy the highest professional standards, which means taking careful measures to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation and negligence. Professional integrity also means following a code of ethics with respect to transparency and disclosure. These measures are important both for preserving an entity’s licence to operate, as well as for attracting and retaining clients. Failure to meet professional standards may lead to negative consequences such as legal penalties or reputational damage, harming the entity’s clients as well as its shareholders. To maintain professional integrity, entities must ensure employees are trained in, and committed to adhering to, applicable financial industry regulations. A description of management’s approach to assuring professional integrity may help investors understand risk exposure and processes in place to avoid misconduct. Disclosure of the entity’s amount of legal and regulatory fines and settlements may provide investors and stakeholders with more transparent information regarding which financial institutions are adhering to regulatory norms.
    • Systemic Risk Management The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.
      • Systemic Risk Management Investment Banking & Brokerage entities that fail to manage risks to capital effectively may suffer significant value losses to their financial assets while increasing liabilities. Because of the interconnectedness of the global financial system, these failures can contribute to significant market disruption and financial crises. This systemic nature of risk has become a central concern for regulators. As a result, many jurisdictions require that banks undergo supervised stress tests to evaluate whether the entity has sufficient capital and liquidity to absorb losses, continue operations and meet obligations in adverse economic and financial conditions. Failure to meet regulatory requirements may lead to penalties and substantially increased future compliance costs. Investment banks should improve their disclosures by measuring how well they can absorb shocks arising from systemic stresses to demonstrate how risks associated with their size, complexity, interconnectedness, substitutability and cross-jurisdictional activity are being managed. Entities that commit to enhanced disclosures may experience improved investor and shareholder confidence, potentially leading to increased revenues.
      • Employee Incentives & Risk-taking Variations in employee compensation structures in the Investment Banking & Brokerage industry may incentivise employees to focus on short- or long-term entity performance. Structures that emphasise short-term performance may encourage excessive risk-taking, with adverse implications for long-term corporate value. Various financial crises in recent decades have increased regulatory and shareholder scrutiny towards excessive risk-taking behaviour. Enhanced disclosure of employee compensation, focusing on performance metrics and variable remuneration, policies regarding clawback provisions, supervision, control and validation of traders’ pricing of Level 3 assets may provide investors with a better understanding of how entities are preserving corporate value by prioritising long-term growth over short-term reward.
  • Automobiles Remove
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    • Product Quality & Safety The category addresses issues involving unintended characteristics of products sold or services provided that may create health or safety risks to end-users. It addresses a company’s ability to offer manufactured products and/or services that meet customer expectations with respect to their health and safety characteristics. It includes, but is not limited to, issues involving liability, management of recalls and market withdrawals, product testing, and chemicals/content/ingredient management in products.
      • Product Safety Driving is a risky activity, since factors such as distracted driving, drunk driving, speeding and dangerous weather conditions may result in accidents that expose drivers, passengers and bystanders to injuries and deaths. Defective vehicles may also cause accidents, and failure to detect defects before vehicles are sold may result in significant financial repercussions for auto manufacturers. In many countries, defective vehicles that do not meet safety requirements must be recalled and repaired or replaced at the manufacturer’s cost. Recalls may damage brand value, which may reduce revenues and growth potential and increase an entity’s risk profile and cost of capital. Entities that ensure vehicle safety and respond quickly when they identify defects may reduce the risks of regulatory action or customer lawsuits that may adversely affect their margins. Through effective management of vehicle safety, entities may improve brand value and sales over the long term.
    • Labour Practices The category addresses the company’s ability to uphold commonly accepted labour standards in the workplace, including compliance with labour laws and internationally accepted norms and standards. This includes, but is not limited to, ensuring basic human rights related to child labour, forced or bonded labour, exploitative labour, fair wages and overtime pay, and other basic workers’ rights. It also includes minimum wage policies and provision of benefits, which may influence how a workforce is attracted, retained, and motivated. The category further addresses a company’s relationship with organized labour and freedom of association.
      • Labour Practices Collective bargaining agreements cover many workers in the Automobiles industry guiding fair wage discussions, safe working conditions and freedom of association, which are among basic workers’ rights. Because of the global nature of the industry, auto entities may also operate in countries where workers’ rights are inadequately protected. Effective communication by management regarding issues such as pay and working conditions may prevent conflicts between workers and management that may result in strikes, which slow or suspend manufacturing, reduce revenues and increase operational risk. Auto manufacturers that manage workers’ rights effectively may improve the long-term financial sustainability of their operations by enhancing worker productivity.
    • Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion The category addresses a company’s ability to ensure that its culture and hiring and promotion practices embrace the building of a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects the makeup of local talent pools and its customer base. It addresses the issues of discriminatory practices on the bases of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and other factors.
      None
    • Product Design & Lifecycle Management The category addresses incorporation of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations in characteristics of products and services provided or sold by the company. It includes, but is not limited to, managing the lifecycle impacts of products and services, such as those related to packaging, distribution, use-phase resource intensity, and other environmental and social externalities that may occur during their use-phase or at the end of life. The category captures a company’s ability to address customer and societal demand for more sustainable products and services as well as to meet evolving environmental and social regulation. It does not address direct environmental or social impacts of the company’s operations nor does it address health and safety risks to consumers from product use, which are covered in other categories.
      • Fuel Economy & Use-phase Emissions Motor vehicle fossil fuel combustion accounts for a significant share of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contributing to global climate change. Engine exhaust also generates local air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NO?), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter (PM), which can threaten human health and the environment. In this context, vehicle emissions increasingly concern consumers and regulators around the world. Although use-phase emissions are downstream from auto manufacturers, regulations often focus on auto manufacturers to reduce these emissions, such as through fuel economy standards. More stringent emissions standards and changing consumer demands are driving electric vehicle and hybrid market expansion, as well as for high fuel-efficiency conventional vehicles. Moreover, manufacturers are designing innovative vehicles made with lighter-weight materials to improve fuel efficiency. Entities that meet current fuel-efficiency and emissions standards and continue to innovate to meet or exceed future regulatory standards in various markets may strengthen their competitive position and expand their market share, while mitigating the risk of reduced demand for conventional vehicles.
    • Materials Sourcing & Efficiency The category addresses issues related to the resilience of materials supply chains to impacts of climate change and other external environmental and social factors. It captures the impacts of such external factors on operational activity of suppliers, which can further affect availability and pricing of key resources. It addresses a company’s ability to manage these risks through product design, manufacturing, and end-of-life management, such as by using of recycled and renewable materials, reducing the use of key materials (dematerialization), maximizing resource efficiency in manufacturing, and making R&D investments in substitute materials. Additionally, companies can manage these issues by screening, selection, monitoring, and engagement with suppliers to ensure their resilience to external risks. It does not address issues associated with environmental and social externalities created by operational activity of individual suppliers, which is covered in a separate category.
      • Materials Sourcing Entities in the Automobiles industry commonly rely on rare earth metals and other critical materials as important inputs. Many of these inputs have few substitutes and often are sourced from a few countries, many of which may be subject to geopolitical uncertainty. Other sustainability impacts related to climate change, land use, resource scarcity and conflict in regions where the industry’s supply chain operates are also increasingly shaping the industry’s ability to source materials. Additionally, increased competition for these materials because of growing global demand from other sectors may result in price increases and supply risks. These materials play a crucial role in clean energy technologies, such as electric and hybrid vehicles. As regulators strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and consumer demand grows for more fuel-efficient vehicles, the share of hybrids and zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) produced by the Automobiles industry may continue to increase in the future. Entities that limit the use of critical materials, secure their sourcing and develop alternatives may mitigate supply disruptions and volatile input prices, which could adversely affect their margins, risk profile and cost of capital.
      • Materials Efficiency & Recycling Auto manufacturing involves the use of significant amounts of materials (including steel, iron, aluminium and plastics) and can generate substantial amounts of waste (including scrap metal, paint sludge and shipping materials). As the rate of vehicle ownership expands globally and millions of vehicles reach the end of their useful lives each year, automobile lifecycle environmental impacts are increasing. Automobile entities may focus on innovation in design as well as process and technological improvements to mitigate these impacts and achieve financial benefits. Entities that improve materials efficiency in their production processes, including reducing waste and reusing or recycling waste and scrapped vehicles, may reduce vehicle lifecycle environmental impacts. Through such innovation, entities may achieve cost savings by reducing input costs and mitigating potential regulatory fines or penalties. They may also mitigate production input price fluctuations from periodic or long-term resource scarcity.
    • Business Ethics The category addresses the company’s approach to managing risks and opportunities surrounding ethical conduct of business, including fraud, corruption, bribery and facilitation payments, fiduciary responsibilities, and other behaviour that may have an ethical component. This includes sensitivity to business norms and standards as they shift over time, jurisdiction, and culture. It addresses the company’s ability to provide services that satisfy the highest professional and ethical standards of the industry, which means to avoid conflicts of interest, misrepresentation, bias, and negligence through training employees adequately and implementing policies and procedures to ensure employees provide services free from bias and error.
      None
    • Systemic Risk Management The category addresses the company’s contributions to or management of systemic risks resulting from large-scale weakening or collapse of systems upon which the economy and society depend. This includes financial systems, natural resource systems, and technological systems. It addresses the mechanisms a company has in place to reduce its contributions to systemic risks and to improve safeguards that may mitigate the impacts of systemic failure. For financial institutions, the category also captures the company’s ability to absorb shocks arising from financial and economic stress and meet stricter regulatory requirements related to the complexity and interconnectedness of companies in the industry.
      None

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