Harvard Business School Publishes Case Study on SASB

SAN FRANCISCO, July 30, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™, a 501c3 non-profit organization that develops sustainability accounting standards for publicly-listed U.S. corporations, today announced that Harvard Business School (HBS) has released a case study on SASB. The study, which will be taught at HBS this winter in a course on power and influence in society, describes SASB's path towards financial sustainability and gaining market adoption of its nonfinancial accounting metrics.

Case co-authors Julie Battilana, Associate Professor of Business Administration at HBS, and Michael Norris, Case Writer at HBS, have tracked SASB's development over the past three years. In the case they describe the leadership of Dr. Jean Rogers, SASB CEO and Founder, in transforming SASB from an idea germinated at Harvard University into a globally-respected standards setting organization. Milestones along the way—including recruiting the board, finding funders, developing an evidence-based research process, gaining multi-stakeholder consensus, publicly issuing standards, and building revenue streams—are described in the case.

"The old nonprofit model—based on philanthropy and advocacy—is changing. SASB is a new type of nonprofit; one that supplies essential market infrastructure and generates revenue," says Dr. Rogers. "We hope this case helps business students see the opportunities for entrepreneurship in the non-profit sector—a field that is worthy of their talent and leadership," says Dr. Rogers.  

Harvard University has played a central role in SASB's development. The idea for SASB was conceived at the Initiative for Responsible Investment (IRI) at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and published in a seminal paper in 2010 called From Transparency to Performance: Industry Based Sustainability Reporting on Key Issues, authored by Steve Lydenberg, David Wood, and Jean Rogers. Dr. Rogers was also a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. Robert Eccles, Professor of Management Practice at HBS, served as SASB's inaugural board chair and continues to serve on the organization's board, while Steve Lydenberg, Founding Director of the IRI, was a founding member of SASB's board and currently serves on SASB's advisory council.

About SASB
The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board™ (SASB)™ is an independent 501(c)3 organization that develops industry-specific standards for use in disclosing material sustainability information in mandatory filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, and Mary Schapiro, former SEC chairman, serve as chair and vice chair (respectively) of SASB's Board of Directors. More than 1,800 individuals representing $20T assets under management and $8.7T market capital have participated in multi-stakeholder industry working groups informing standards development to date. For more information about SASB, visit www.sasb.org, or follow us on YouTube, Twitter or LinkedIn.

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SOURCE Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB)