SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH[1] specifies a timestamp (number of seconds since the UNIX epoch) to be used as a timestamp in place of the "current" date and time, in order to facilitate reproducible builds.
[1] https://reproducible-builds.org/specs/source-date-epoch/
(Note, this diff is against the upstream elftoolchain repo, and would make it into FreeBSD in a future vendor import.)