The Science Based Targets initiatives caves in to corporate lobbying
“SBTi has become an unscientific target setting body without real credibility . . . ”.
In April 2024, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) came under criticism after SBTi’s Board of Trustees put out a statement that opened the door to allowing companies to use carbon offsets to address scope 3 emissions.
The statement came without any consultation with staff working at SBTi or with the SBTi Technical Council.
Doreen Stabinksy, Professor of Global Environmental Politics at College of the Atlantic, is a member of the SBTi Technical Council. “This isn’t a science-based decision,” she told Reuters.
My favourite response to the statement came from Frederic Hache of the Green Finance Observatory:
In a shocking turn of events, a corporate and financial institutions’ climate action organisation decided to favour corporate and financial institutions’ economic interests.
Here are the organisations that partner with the SBTi — none of these organisations is critical of carbon trading:
In July 2024, SBTi published a synthesis of evidence submitted to SBTi on the effectiveness of carbon offsets. The synthesis report was “SBTi’s bombshell rebuke to offsets,” Joe Romm at the University of Pennsylvania commented.
In February 2025, 29 scientists wrote to the SBTi urging SBTi not to allow corporations to use carbon offsets.
“Ongoing emissions responsibility”
This week, SBTi published version 2 of its Corporate Net Zero Standard.
And surprise, surprise! Carbon credits are in there.
SBTi has come up with something it calls an “ongoing emissions responsibility” recognition programme.
“Companies will continue to emit GHGs on the path to net-zero,” SBTi writes in its new standard. Ongoing emissions responsibility is aimed at recognising companies that buy carbon credits and make other climate contributions.
SBTi describes ongoing emissions responsibility as “a balanced approach to the use of high-integrity carbon credits and other climate contributions as a complement and not a substitute to companies reducing their carbon footprint, through a voluntary recognition program”.
SBTi does not define which “high-integrity carbon credits” will be allowed. The new standard sets “minimum criteria” for companies in the ongoing emissions responsibility framework. And it states that,
The SBTi will develop criteria and processes to recognize relevant third-party frameworks, standards, and programs where applicable.
Other climate contributions refers to using a contribution budget. Companies should set a price per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent ongoing emissions. This sets a “contribution budget” which is to be used to fund “verified mitigation outcomes and other eligible climate actions”.
There are three levels of ongoing emissions responsibility:
Engaged: companies that cover at least 1% of their emissions by buying carbon credits or using a contribution budget;
Advanced: companies that cover 10% of their emissions by buying carbon credits, or set a carbon price of US$20 per tCO₂e for the contribution budget; and
Leadership: large companies that cover 100% of their emissions by buying carbon credits, and set a carbon price of US$80 per tCO₂e. Small companies have to cover 10% of their emissions and set a carbon price of US$80 per tCO₂e.
From 2035, large companies have to buy carbon dioxide removal credits, starting at 1% of ongoing emissions and increasing to 100% by the net zero target year.
“Best efforts”
SBTi’s new standard allows a loophole for companies that fail to achieve their net zero targets. “The updated Standard is built on a best-efforts framework,” the new standard explains.
Under the new rules, a company that fails to meet its target can argue that it made “best efforts”.
“The one property that gave the system its meaning,” Robert Nasi, CIFOR’s director general, comments, “is that a target was something you could fail.”
“Whether the new architecture constitutes pragmatic realism about scope 3 or a managed retreat dressed in the language of implementation will be decided entirely by documents the SBTi has not yet written, and that is itself the finding: the standard's credibility is now a forward contract on its own future guidance.”
SBTi will not publicly disclose companies that fail to meet their targets.
Big Tech lobbying
The Financial Times reports that Big Tech companies lobbied the SBTi to allow companies to buy certificates linked to lower-carbon products — even though the companies did not buy or use these lower-carbon products.
Under pressure from the industry, SBTi dropped proposed rules that would have made it difficult for Big Tech to claim that their massively polluting gas-fuelled data centres were running on renewable energy.
Kenza Bryan writes that four people familiar with the decision told the Financial Times about SBTi’s decision to drop the proposed rules. Bryan writes that,
Companies argued that the proposal was too onerous and could backfire by discouraging clean energy investments, the people said, despite research showing that such a policy could slash emissions.
A group of 26 NGOs wrote to the SBTi’s CEO David Kennedy describing the weakening of the standard as “unacceptable”. The NGOs urge SBTi to follow the science rather than corporate pressure. They write that,
If it stays on this current disappointing path, it will be a self-admission that the SBTi has become an unscientific target setting body without real credibility in the climate and clean energy space. It will be an irreparable self-inflicted wound to its integrity, utility and relevance going forward.