📦 Contents

Chapter 2. ESG Data Standards — GRI, SASB, TCFD, ISSB

This chapter of the ESG Finance Standard adopts five primary data sources — GRI Universal Standards 2021, SASB Industry Standards 2024, TCFD Final Recommendations 2017 and Status Report 2024, ISSB IFRS S1 and S2 (published June 2023, effective January 2024), and CDP Climate Change Questionnaire 2024 — as the single normative references for the ENUM dictionary, metadata schema, and verification procedures used by this standard's simulator¹. The scope of this chapter is limited to defining the data sources themselves; application rules for the taxonomies (EU Taxonomy and K-Taxonomy), rating scales (MSCI AAA through CCC), transition risk (TRANSITION_RISK), and physical risk (PHYSICAL_RISK) are delegated to subsequent chapters.

ESG disclosure is a unified system in which three axes — "who measures what, by what verification procedure, and through what medium of publication" — cannot be separated. GRI, SASB, TCFD, ISSB, and CDP each began from different origins, but as of 2024 they all carry equivalent interoperability obligations across the ENVIRONMENT, SOCIAL, and GOVERNANCE axes for data format, metadata, and verification procedure.

2.1 GRI Universal Standards 2021 and Topic Standards

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), founded in 1997, publishes the oldest sustainability disclosure standard. The 2021 revision — Universal Standards 2021 (GRI 1: Foundation, GRI 2: General Disclosures, GRI 3: Material Topics) — and the sector-specific Topic Standards together form the current GRI architecture¹. Application of the Universal Standards became mandatory for all GRI-referenced reports issued on or after 1 January 2023, and this standard recognises only post-2023 data as valid values for the GRI ENUM.

The GRI Topic Standards identifier system organises disclosures into the 300 Environmental series — GRI 301 (Materials), 302 (Energy), 303 (Water and Effluents), 304 (Biodiversity), 305 (Emissions), 306 (Waste), 307 (Environmental Compliance), 308 (Supplier Environmental Assessment) — and the 400 Social series — GRI 401 (Employment), 402 (Labour/Management Relations), 403 (Occupational Health and Safety), 404 (Training and Education), 405 (Diversity and Equal Opportunity), 406 (Non-discrimination), 407 (Freedom of Association), 408 (Child Labour), 409 (Forced or Compulsory Labour), 410 (Security Practices), 411 (Rights of Indigenous Peoples), 412 (Human Rights Assessment), 413 (Local Communities), 414 (Supplier Social Assessment), 415 (Public Policy), 416 (Customer Safety), 417 (Marketing and Labeling), 418 (Customer Privacy), 419 (Socioeconomic Compliance)². Implementations that adopt the simulator ENUM GRI MUST record GRI Topic Standards identifiers in their original GRI notation (e.g., GRI_305_1, GRI_403_9) in the manifest field indicators[].source.

GRI's "Materiality Assessment" adopted the concept of "Impact Materiality" from GRI 3 (2021) onward. This concept departs from the "Financial Materiality" adopted by SASB and ISSB, and this standard MUST distinguish the two materiality concepts explicitly in the manifest field materiality_basis. Specifically, GRI-based reporting is recorded as materiality_basis: "impact", SASB/ISSB-based reporting as materiality_basis: "financial", and GRI/ISSB dual reporting as materiality_basis: "double"³.

GRI 11: Oil and Gas Sector, published in October 2021, was the inaugural GRI Sector Standard. It identifies 22 "Likely Material Topics" for petroleum and gas sector enterprises⁴. Subsequent sector standards followed: GRI 12 (Coal, 2022), GRI 13 (Agriculture, Aquaculture and Fishing, 2022), and GRI 14 (Mining, 2024).

2.2 SASB Industry Standards (77-Industry KPI Matrix)

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) first published 77 industry-specific standards in November 2018. Following the consolidation of SASB into the IFRS Foundation's ISSB in 2022, the SASB Industry Standards have been absorbed as the industry-specific application guidance of ISSB. However, the SASB Industry Standards themselves remain independently maintained and updated. As of December 2024, the SASB Standards Application Guidance was formally adopted as the industry-based application appendix of ISSB IFRS S1⁵.

SASB Industry Standards classify enterprises under the Sustainable Industry Classification System (SICS), which comprises 11 sectors and 77 industries. Each industry receives, on average, 13 material KPIs (minimum 5, maximum 18). For example, the "Oil & Gas — Exploration & Production" industry reports 14 KPIs including EM-EP-110a.1 (direct GHG emissions), EM-EP-140a.1 (freshwater withdrawal), and EM-EP-210a.3 (operations in indigenous lands). Implementations adopting the simulator ENUM SASB MUST record SASB KPI identifiers (e.g., EM_EP_110A_1) and units in the manifest as indicators[].source = "SASB" paired with indicators[].code.

The SASB Materiality Map is a matrix tool that maps 26 General Issue Categories across the 11 sectors and 77 industries. This standard requires the manifest field materiality_map_version to record the version of the SASB Materiality Map (e.g., "sasb-mm-2024-q4") so that auditors can verify which version of the Materiality Map served as the basis for KPI selection.

2.3 TCFD Four Pillars (Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, Metrics & Targets)

The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was established by the G20 Financial Stability Board (FSB) in December 2015. Its Final Recommendations, published in June 2017, became the de facto global standard for climate-related financial disclosure⁶. Following the FSB decision of October 2023, TCFD was consolidated into ISSB IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures). The Status Report 2024, published in October 2024, was TCFD's final official publication⁷. The four-pillar / eleven-recommendation disclosure structure of TCFD is preserved verbatim in the body of IFRS S2, and this standard records TCFD's original identifiers (GOV-a, STR-c, etc.) alongside the equivalent IFRS S2 paragraph references.

This standard's simulator ENUM TCFD records the mapping code for each of the eleven recommended disclosures in the manifest as indicators[].source = "TCFD" paired with indicators[].code = "STR_C". Scenario analysis (STR-c) requires that at least three climate scenarios — SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, and SSP5-8.5 — be applied under IFRS S2 ¶22. This standard requires the manifest array scenarios[] to record, for each scenario, the identifier, time horizon, discount rate, and results as structured data.

The distinction between transition risk (TRANSITION_RISK) and physical risk (PHYSICAL_RISK) follows the classification defined in TCFD's original recommendations. This standard's simulator ENUMs TRANSITION_RISK and PHYSICAL_RISK adopt verbatim the definitions in the TCFD Supplement on Risk Management Integration and Disclosure (2020). Transition risk is decomposed further into five sub-categories (policy, legal, technology, market, reputation), and physical risk into two sub-categories (acute, chronic).

2.4 ISSB IFRS S1 (General Sustainability Disclosures) and IFRS S2 (Climate Disclosures)

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) was established by the IFRS Foundation at COP26 in November 2021. On 26 June 2023, ISSB published its first two standards simultaneously: IFRS S1 "General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information" and IFRS S2 "Climate-related Disclosures"⁸. Both standards apply to fiscal years beginning on or after 1 January 2024, and First-Year Transitional Reliefs are permitted through 30 June 2025.

The core requirements of IFRS S1 are fourfold: (1) the reporting entity must match the entity that issues IFRS-based financial statements; (2) the source of "reasonable and supportable information" must be explicitly identified; (3) impacts of the entity's value chain — both upstream and downstream — must be included; and (4) industry-based disclosures use SASB Industry Standards as the starting point⁸. This standard requires implementations that adopt the simulator ENUM IFRS_S1 to record the satisfaction of these four requirements in the manifest object ifrs_s1_requirements as structured data.

IFRS S2 absorbs the TCFD four pillars verbatim but extends TCFD in five respects: (1) mandatory Scope 3 emissions reporting (TCFD made this only a recommendation); (2) industry-specific metrics anchored to the GICS classification; (3) mandatory "climate resilience assessment" within scenario analysis; (4) a separate disclosure of the "transition plan"; and (5) disclosure of the "internal carbon price"⁹. The ENUM IFRS_S2 records satisfaction of these five extensions in the manifest array ifrs_s2_extensions[].

The EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) adopted the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS, effective 2024) as "interoperable" with IFRS S1 / S2. However, ESRS imposes mandatory "Double Materiality" — simultaneous application of financial materiality and impact materiality — and is therefore more demanding than IFRS S1¹⁰. This standard restricts the manifest value materiality_basis: "double" to ESRS-based reports.

2.5 CDP Corporate Disclosure System (Climate, Water, Forests)

CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, founded in 2002) is a global platform on which corporations, cities, and nations voluntarily disclose environmental data through annual CDP questionnaires. As of 2024, more than 23,000 corporations have responded to the CDP Climate Change Questionnaire¹¹. CDP operates independent questionnaires across three thematic domains — Climate Change, Water Security, and Forests — and introduced an Integrated Questionnaire in 2024 that allows all three domains to be submitted as a single response.

CDP's grading scale defines nine bands — A, A-, B, B-, C, C-, D, D-, F — and A-band corporations are published annually on the CDP A List. As of 2024, eight Korean corporations have been included on the CDP Climate Change A List (Samsung Electronics, SK hynix, LG Electronics, Hyundai E&C, KB Financial Group, Samsung Life Insurance, SK Telecom, and DGB Financial Group). This standard requires the manifest field cdp_score to record the nine-band grade as an ENUM value (A, A_MINUS, ..., F).

This standard's simulator ENUM CDP records CDP Climate Change Questionnaire module identifiers (e.g., C6_1, C7_3_1) in the manifest as indicators[].source = "CDP" paired with indicators[].code. Verification of CDP responses must follow ISO 14064-3 or ISAE 3000 (Revised) procedures; this standard requires the manifest field verification_standard to record the ENUM value ISO_14064_3 or ISAE_3000.

2.6 Data Quality and XBRL Taxonomy

The quality of ESG data is evaluated across six dimensions: accuracy, completeness, consistency, timeliness, validity, and uniqueness. This standard adopts these six dimensions, drawn from the fifteen data-quality characteristics defined in ISO/IEC 25012:2008 (Data Quality Model), as the minimum quality dimensions for ESG data. The manifest array data_quality[] records, for each dimension, the measured value and the measurement procedure as structured data¹².

XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language), first published in 1998, is the machine-readable standard for financial disclosure. In May 2024, the IFRS Foundation published the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Taxonomy, which maps every disclosure requirement of IFRS S1 and S2 to an XBRL tag¹³. This standard requires the manifest field xbrl_taxonomy to record the version of the applied XBRL taxonomy (e.g., "ifrs-2024-05"), and all three axes — ENVIRONMENT, SOCIAL, and GOVERNANCE — must be representable as XBRL tags.

The transition of ESG data from "what humans read in PDF" to "what machines read in XBRL" occurs over 2024 to 2025. The publication of the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Taxonomy is the single inflection point of this transition. All ENUMs in this standard are designed under the premise of machine-readable disclosure post-inflection.

ISO/IEC TR 14180 (ESG Data Sharing Framework, 2024) is the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC32 technical report concerning the sharing of ESG data across organisations. This standard adopts the three metadata requirements of that TR — data provenance, lineage, and evidence — and records them in the manifest as the structured objects provenance, lineage, and evidence.

Reference Standards and Application Notes

All primary sources cited in this chapter are open standards or official government documents. Implementations adopt the following sources as the single source of truth for ESG data origin. This standard does not replace these sources but defines only the machine-readable representation, signing, and audit-trail interfaces for the data format.

弘益人間 (Hongik Ingan) — Benefit All Humanity