The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) released on March 30 a provisional Water Utilities Sustainability Accounting Standard. The standard is for voluntary use by publicly listed corporations for disclosure of sustainability information required for mandatory filings for the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The provisional standard covers publicly traded water, wastewater and stormwater utilities. Although AMWA members are not publicly traded companies, the association submitted two comment letters to SASB on January 4, 2016 and on January 19, 2016 outlining concerns about how water sector utilities were inaccurately portrayed in the draft standards. AMWA’s comment letters emphasized the importance of accurately describing the sector in the SASB’s standards documents.
A preliminary review of the newly released provisional standards indicates that many of AMWA’s comments and concerns were addressed. For example, the narrative describing the disclosure topics and accounting metrics was improved throughout the document, often in response to AMWA’s comments.
There are eight disclosure topics in the provisional standard: energy management, effluent quality management, water scarcity, drinking water quality, fair pricing and access, end-use efficiency, distribution network efficiency and network resilience and climate change impacts. There are 17 accounting metrics nested under these topics.
In the coming months, AMWA plans to further discuss with SASB staff any concerns identified with the provisional standards. SASB staff has described the provisional standards period as a time of “deepening engagement” with the broader stakeholder community.