Sustainability issues are posing unique challenges to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For an agency used to giving specific directives to the companies it regulates, the unique complexity and variety of sustainability and related environmental, social and governance concerns both for companies and investors have the regulator treading lightly on this sensitive turf.

Like cybersecurity, sustainability issues are knee-deep in science which is foreign to the training of the lawyers and economists who make up the overwhelming populace of SEC commissioners and staff. Unlike cybersecurity, what is important for dozens of different industries and countless individual and institutional investors can vary widely.

SEC Chair Mary Jo White said Thursday she is encouraged by voluntary sustainability reporting by issuers as the SEC grapples with whether to impose stricter standards.

As the consideration of new rules goes forward, she said she is opposed to strict line-by-line requirements.

But SEC Investor Advisory Commission member and AFL-CIO General Counsel Damon Silvers balked at the idea of letting companies decide for themselves what sustainability matters are material enough and important enough to disclose to investors.

“(This discretion) is not how the SEC does business,” said Silvers at an IAC meeting.

He accused the agency of treating sustainability as a second-class issue even though it is as relevant to business success as corporate debt.

Too often companies have failed in the important need to be consistent in the way they talk about sustainability matters in SEC filings and in other public pronouncements, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Founder and CEO Jean Rogers told the Investor Advisory Committee.

“Disclosures made today are not adequate to make investment and voting decisions,” said Rogers, whose non-for-profit has issued sustainability standards for 79 industries.

She said businesses regularly present how they are handling ESG matters in an overly favorable light.

At the same time, she said “companies don’t know how much to say.”

She added they are looking for a sweet spot between disclosing too much and too little, partially in a quest not to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Arguing against mandating detailed sustainability disclosures, Global Reporting Initiative Chair Christianna Wood contended requiring line-item disclosures across industries would be an excessive burden and would likely produce a large quantity of information immaterial to investors.

GRI’s sustainability standards are being followed by 290 SEC-registered companies.

Pointing to the fluid nature of sustainability issues, she said some haven’t yet risen to the point of being financially material, but might in the future, such as consequences of increased palm oil production or concerns over the rights of indigenous peoples in the context of the extractives industry.

“(Disclosures on these) can have real value for investors and other stakeholders,” the GRI chair said.