GRI vs SASB: Key Differences Explained

Quick Comparison

	GRI	SASB
Scope	Broad sustainability impacts across economic, environmental, and social topics	Financially material sustainability issues by industry
Applicability	Any organization, any sector, any size	Publicly listed companies, 77 industry-specific standards
Required/Voluntary	Voluntary (referenced in some regulations)	Voluntary (now consolidated under ISSB)
Geography	Global	Originally U.S.-focused, now global under IFRS
Key Focus	Impact materiality — effects on people and planet	Financial materiality — effects on enterprise value
Assurance	Encouraged, not required	Encouraged, not required

What is GRI?

The Global Reporting Initiative has been the dominant sustainability reporting framework since its founding in 1997. GRI Standards provide a modular system for organizations to report on their most significant impacts on the economy, environment, and people. The framework uses the concept of impact materiality — what matters is determined by the severity and likelihood of an organization's outward effects, not solely by what affects the bottom line.

GRI operates through Universal Standards (GRI 1, 2, and 3), which apply to every reporting organization, and Topic Standards (GRI 200, 300, and 400 series) covering economic, environmental, and social subjects respectively. Organizations conduct a materiality assessment to determine which Topic Standards are relevant, then disclose against those standards. Over 10,000 organizations worldwide use GRI, making it the most widely adopted sustainability reporting framework by a significant margin.

The framework underwent a major revision in 2021, with the updated Universal Standards taking effect in January 2023. These revisions strengthened requirements around human rights due diligence and aligned more closely with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

What is SASB?

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board was established in 2011 to develop industry-specific sustainability disclosure standards aimed at investors. SASB Standards identify the subset of ESG issues most likely to affect the financial condition or operating performance of companies within 77 distinct industries. This investor-oriented lens means SASB focuses exclusively on financial materiality.

In 2022, SASB was consolidated under the IFRS Foundation when the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was formed. The ISSB has since incorporated SASB's industry-based approach into its own standards, particularly IFRS S1. SASB Standards remain available and are actively maintained, but their long-term future is as a component of the broader ISSB ecosystem rather than as a standalone framework.

SASB's strength has always been its specificity. Rather than offering a universal set of topics, SASB identifies exactly which metrics matter for semiconductor companies versus airlines versus commercial banks. This makes SASB disclosures highly comparable within industries but less useful for cross-sector analysis or for stakeholders interested in broader societal impacts.

Key Differences

1. Materiality Approach

This is the fundamental philosophical divide. GRI uses impact materiality, asking organizations to report on topics where they have significant effects on people and the environment, regardless of whether those effects translate to financial risk. SASB uses financial materiality, focusing only on sustainability issues reasonably likely to affect enterprise value. An issue like community displacement might be highly material under GRI but immaterial under SASB if it doesn't affect the company's financial outlook.

2. Audience and Purpose

GRI serves a multi-stakeholder audience — investors, employees, communities, regulators, civil society. SASB was designed specifically for the investment community, particularly institutional investors making capital allocation decisions. This difference in audience drives fundamentally different disclosure content, even when both frameworks address the same topic.

3. Industry Specificity

SASB provides granular, industry-specific metrics across 77 industries grouped into 11 sectors. GRI is sector-agnostic in its core standards, though the GRI Sector Standards program (launched with Oil & Gas in 2022, followed by Coal and Agriculture) is beginning to add industry-level guidance. SASB's industry approach means two companies in the same industry report on identical metrics, enabling direct comparison.

4. Metric Prescriptiveness

SASB standards specify exact metrics — units, formulas, and definitions. For example, SASB tells an electric utility to report Scope 1 emissions in metric tons CO2-e and provides the precise calculation methodology. GRI offers more flexibility in how organizations report, providing disclosure requirements but allowing greater latitude in measurement approaches.

5. Scope of Topics

GRI covers a substantially broader range of sustainability topics. Areas like labor practices, indigenous rights, tax transparency, and anti-corruption are well-developed in GRI but may not appear in SASB standards for industries where those issues are deemed financially immaterial. SASB typically identifies 5-15 material topics per industry; a GRI report might address 20 or more.

6. Geographic Origin and Adoption

GRI was developed in Amsterdam with a global orientation from the start. SASB was created in San Francisco with an initial focus on U.S. capital markets, though it expanded internationally. GRI remains dominant in Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia. SASB gained strongest traction in North America and with global institutional investors.

7. Regulatory Integration

GRI Standards are explicitly referenced in the EU's European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) under the CSRD — the ESRS were developed with significant GRI input. SASB's industry-based approach has been integrated into the ISSB's IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, which are being adopted across multiple jurisdictions including the UK, Canada, Japan, and others.

Which One Do You Need?

Use GRI if your organization needs to communicate with diverse stakeholders, operates in jurisdictions moving toward double materiality requirements (particularly the EU), or wants to report comprehensively on your sustainability impacts regardless of financial materiality. GRI is also the better starting point for organizations new to sustainability reporting.

Use SASB if your primary reporting audience is the investment community, you need highly comparable industry-specific metrics, or you're preparing for ISSB adoption in your jurisdiction. Companies responding to investor questionnaires and ESG rating agencies will find SASB metrics map directly to what investors are asking for.

Use both if you're a large, publicly traded company with diverse stakeholder needs. Many Fortune 500 companies report against both frameworks — GRI for comprehensive stakeholder communication and SASB for investor-focused financial materiality disclosures. The two frameworks are complementary rather than competing.

Can You Use Both?

Absolutely, and many organizations do. A 2023 survey by the Corporate Reporting Dialogue found that over 60% of S&P 500 companies referencing sustainability standards used two or more frameworks. GRI and SASB were the most common pairing.

The practical approach is to use GRI as the backbone of your sustainability report, providing the comprehensive stakeholder-oriented narrative, and then include a SASB index or supplementary table with industry-specific metrics for investor consumption. The GRI materiality assessment can be extended to include a financial materiality lens, effectively bridging both approaches.

With the convergence happening through the ISSB and the EU's double materiality concept under CSRD, the distinction between these frameworks is narrowing. Organizations that have been reporting under both are well-positioned for emerging regulatory requirements that demand consideration of both impact and financial materiality.

Council Fire's Perspective

In our consulting work, we consistently advise clients to start with GRI if they're building a sustainability reporting program from scratch. The framework's flexibility and stakeholder breadth provide a solid foundation that can be supplemented with SASB's investor-focused metrics as the program matures. For organizations already facing investor pressure on specific ESG metrics, layering in SASB's industry standards is straightforward and adds immediate credibility with the capital markets.

The real question isn't GRI or SASB anymore — it's how both frameworks feed into the regulatory landscape you'll face in the next two to three years. Whether that's CSRD in Europe, ISSB adoption in your home jurisdiction, or SEC climate rules in the United States, organizations that understand both GRI's impact lens and SASB's financial lens will navigate the transition more smoothly. We help clients build reporting architectures that serve multiple frameworks from a single data collection effort, avoiding the duplication trap that catches many first-time reporters.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SASB being replaced by the ISSB?

Not exactly. SASB Standards continue to exist and are maintained by the ISSB as a resource for companies applying IFRS S1, which requires industry-specific disclosures. The ISSB has committed to maintaining the SASB Standards while integrating their content into the ISSB framework over time. Companies currently using SASB can continue doing so, and their work will transfer directly to ISSB compliance.

Can a small private company use SASB?

While SASB was designed for publicly listed companies, private companies can and do use the standards, particularly those preparing for an IPO, seeking institutional investment, or participating in supply chains where buyers request standardized ESG data. However, GRI is generally a better fit for private companies given its broader stakeholder orientation and scalability.

How do GRI and SASB handle climate disclosures differently?

GRI 305 (Emissions) requires reporting of Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions for any organization where emissions are a material topic. SASB addresses emissions only in industries where climate is financially material, but provides more granular, industry-specific metrics — for example, requiring airlines to report emissions intensity per revenue ton-kilometer. Both reference the GHG Protocol as the underlying measurement methodology.

Which framework do ESG rating agencies prefer?

Most major ESG rating agencies (MSCI, Sustainalytics, CDP, ISS) can work with data from either framework, but their questionnaires tend to align more closely with SASB's financially material, industry-specific approach. That said, GRI disclosures provide the breadth of information needed to score well across the full range of ESG rating methodologies.