The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) announced their plans to merge into one organization, which will be called the Value Reporting Foundation.

IIRC Board Chair Barry Melancon (who is also the CEO of the AICPA) said that the products the two organizations provide (standards in the case of the SASB and a framework in the case of the IIRC) are highly complementary. Both will be retained in the merger and further integrated.

“The <IR> Framework and the SASB Standards are complementary. Integrated reporting describes all relevant value creation topics and the approach to integrating them in corporate thought and reporting," said Melancon. "SASB provides the precise definitions of the data that should be reported for these topics in each industry. Organizations globally already use both to communicate effectively with investors about how sustainability issues are connected to long-term enterprise value, with these endeavors ultimately benefitting other key stakeholders.Under the Value Reporting Foundation, we will link the concepts between the<IR> Framework and SASB Standards even further,”

The SASB and IIRC had already been working alongside other sustainability reporting organizations such as the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and the Carbon Disclosure Standards Board (CDSP) on developing a comprehensive unified reporting system for environmental, social and governance (ESG) accounting. The project was undertaken in response to market concerns that the multiplicity of sustainability reporting organizations was creating confusion that impaired the overall usefulness of their respective systems. It was these same concerns that motivated the SASB/IIRC merger as well.

"Sustainability disclosure is at the top of the agenda for many, creating incredible momentum towards simplifying the corporate reporting landscape," said Janine Guillot, CEO of SASB, who will lead the new foundation when it is formally launched in mid-2021. "By merging two organizations focused on enterprise value creation, we hope to clarify the field. We stand ready to engage with the efforts of the IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] Foundation, IOSCO [the International Organization of Securities Commissions], EFRAG [the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group], and others working towards global alignment on a corporate reporting system,” 

The SASB and IIRC may not be the only ones to merge into the new foundation. Other organizations might also be incorporated sometime in the future. The CDSP and the foundation have already jointly signaled interest in entering into exploratory discussions in the coming months.