Science Based Targets initiative and carbon offsets: “This isn’t a science-based decision”

And the role of the Bezos Earth Fund.

PHOTO Credit: Greenwash The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism, Third World Network, 1996.

The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is supposed to provide standards for corporations to set emission reduction targets that are in line with climate science. On 9 April 2024, SBTi’s Board of Trustees decided it no longer liked the Science part of the organisation’s name. It put out a statement opening the door to the use of carbon offsets in addressing companies’ scope 3 emissions.

Scope 3 emissions are the greenhouse gas emissions from using the products that companies manufacture. For most companies scope 3 emissions are by far the majority of the emissions for which they responsible.

SBTi’s Board put out the statement without even consulting the staff of the organisation or the SBTi Technical Council. SBTi staff responded with a their own statement writing that, “SBTi are deeply concerned about the content of the statement and the process by which it was developed and released.”

A group of 21 technical advisers, representing about 20% of the SBTi’s Technical Advisory Group, wrote to board of trustees asking them “to retract this decision immediately”. They also called for the resignation of CEO Luiz Fernando do Amaral and the board members who support using offsets.

“The actions of the CEO and the board have resulted in significant harm to our organization’s reputation and viability,” they wrote.

Doreen Stabinksy, professor of global environmental politics at College of the Atlantic, is a member of the SBTi Technical Council. She told Reuters that “This isn’t a science-based decision.”

Paul Schreiber, Senior Policy Advisor of Reclaim Finance, is a member of the Technical Advisory Group. In a statement he said that,

This statement could lead to a critical change to the way in which companies set decarbonisation targets. It should not have been made without consulting the very groups and bodies that were set up to ensure the scientific integrity of the SBTi. If it is not retracted by the Board then I cannot continue to work with the Technical Advisory Group. I will not be part of a standard-setting process that is a potential cover for a greenwashing operation.

The Financial Times wrote that “SBTi has an important role to play, and it now needs to act quickly.”

Its reputation hinges on the perception that its decisions are based on rigorous, science-based research — not made privately and unilaterally by its nine board members.

The board can protect that reputation by retracting its latest statement and allowing SBTi’s technical team to complete their work on environmental credits without preordaining the outcome. It should also consider what steps it needs to take to regain the confidence of SBTi staff, which has clearly been damaged.

On 12 April 2024, SBTi updated its statement to clarify that “No change has been made to SBTi current standards.”

While this “clarification” explains the process SBTi will carry out before deciding whether to change its standards to include offsets for scope 3 emissions, it is posted below the original statement by the Board of Trustees. It is not a retraction of that statement.

Bezos funding

SBTi’s current core funders are the Bezos Earth Fund and the IKEA Foundation. In 2023, 45% of SBTi’s income was from core funding, with 11% coming from funding for specific projects, and 48% from validation service fees.

The Bezos Earth Fund is a major supporter of carbon markets. Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund was previously CEO of the World Resources Institute, and before that was special envoy for climate change at the World Bank. In 2022, at COP27, Steer said that, “If we’re going to phase out fossil fuels in our energy systems, we believe voluntary carbon markets have a role to play.”

The Bezos Earth Fund also funds the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market and the Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative. Both of which promote carbon trading.

Meanwhile IKEA is planting monoculture pine plantations in New Zealand to offset its emissions from burning fossil fuels.

SBTi is a collaboration between the CDP (the Carbon Disclosure Project), the UN Global Compact, We Mean Business Coalition, World Resources Institute, and WWF.

None of these organisations is opposed to carbon trading.

In March 2024, We Mean Business published a report titled, “Accelerating Corporate Climate Finance through Carbon Markets”. The report is based on interviews with 187 “corporate leaders”.

One of the findings was:

Accelerate spend: The recognition of carbon credits in setting and achieving targets by standard-setters (e.g., SBTi) would encourage respondents to accelerate annual VCM spend by an average of 9% (from -1% in the absence of change).

We Mean Business is funded by, among others, the IKEA Foundation and Amazon, which is of course the company where Jeff Bezos made his billions.

In November 2020, the Bezos Earth Fund gave US$100 million to WWF for nature-based climate solutions. WWF-US President and CEO Carter Roberts hoped “to leverage an additional $850 million from other partners”. No doubt by selling carbon offsets.

World Resources Institute has supported carbon markets for many years. Back in 2010, WRI published a fact sheet on offsets that argued that, “Once internal mitigation opportunities have been maximized, carbon markets provide another option for businesses to reduce their carbon footprints and support emission reduction projects.”

The Financial Times reports that in March 2024, the Bezos Earth Fund co-ordinated a meeting of SBTi’s board and funders in London. Some SBTi staff were also present. The use of offsets was discussed and the Bezos Earth Fund “argued in favour of companies using offsets”, according to the Financial Times.

María Mendiluce, chief executive of We Mean Business and a trustee of SBTi, spoke in support of offsets at the meeting.

“The voice of business on this issue is clear,” Mendiluce wrote on the We Mean Business website on 10 April 2024.

“Companies value SBTi and are committed to delivering on their emissions reductions targets, but need greater clarity and flexibility in how to navigate Scope 3 emissions. This change empowers companies to bring more innovation and investment into cutting emissions from their value chains.”

The word “flexibility” was removed the following day for “clarity”. Unfortunately Mendiluce did not replace it with the words “greenwash on a colossal scale”.

Some more responses

Stephan Singer, a senior adviser at the Climate Action Network International resigned from SBTi’s technical advisory group. In his resignation letter he wrote that carbon credits are “scientifically, socially and from a climate perspective a hoax”.

In a statement, Carbon Market Watch wrote that,

The Science Based Targets initiative appears to have buckled to pressure from carbon market players and corporate interests to allow companies to meet scope 3 targets with carbon credits, raising the risk that corporations can appear to be improving their climate performance on paper while actually spewing out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 

In a statement from Public Citizen, Clara Vondrich, senior policy counsel with Public Citizen’s Climate Programme, said that,

“The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) should strive to keep the ‘science’ in ‘science based.’ Carbon offsets have been exposed time and again as a delay tactic in the fight against climate change. What the world needs now is rapid decarbonization across transportation, power, industry, and agriculture—not carbon indulgences that companies snap up for a few dollars a ton. Without changing their core business, carbon-intensive companies will lead us to ruin. And carbon offsets are paving the way, by permitting companies to hide the true climate impacts of their businesses.” 

“It’s just sad,” Peter Riggs director of environmental organisation Pivot Point told Grist.

“We were hoping SBTi was going to be the exemplar of integrity at a time when other initiatives were still messing around with offsets. And now they’re indistinguishable.”

The Climate Land Ambition and Rights Alliance release a statement in which Kelly Stone, CLARA Coordinator and Senior Policy Analyst with ActionAid USA, said that,

“Offsetting of any kind is not compatible with a 1.5°C target and obstructs the path to climate justice. Current global efforts are alarmingly insufficient and further delay and denial through offsetting is not acceptable. Allowing this only paves the way for greenwashing tactics and is a clear reflection of corporate pressure. To reclaim credibility and truly drive impactful change, the decision to allow offsetting must be swiftly reversed by the SBTi Board.”

My favourite response to the statement came from Frederic Hache of the Green Finance Observatory. “In a shocking turn of events,” Hache writes, “a corporate and financial institutions’ climate action organisation decided to favour corporate and financial institutions’ economic interests.”

REDD-Monitor’s suggestion, to avoid any future confusion, would be to swap the first two letters of the organisation’s name: the BS Targets initiative.

---