Net zero targets have been thrown a new challenge after one of the key rules governing them were adjusted.
The biggest update for years from the standards body that sets out the most common ESG frameworks has brought in changes to its carbon emissions stipulations. These crank up the pressure on businesses to take measurable reductive action, rather than just have set targets for it.
The Wall Street Journal reported how The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) said it has made “an explicit choice to recognise that companies do not control everything, and that pretending otherwise does not serve anyone.”
But, the change is reasonably good news for companies aiming to offset emissions, for example, by planting trees. According to this sustainability news site, it explicitly references carbon credits for the first time. Yet, it does “allow companies to buy certificates linked to lower-carbon products they have neither purchased nor made or used,” the Financial Times reported.
What do net zero targets mean for companies
The article also outlined why many leading NGOs have criticised the update, saying that it reduces the scientific basis of research, and that the “best efforts” approach represented a softening of the overall targets. This piece outlines what the revised standard means for Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, including areas where many companies have set specific targets and increased their ambitions more deeply into their supply chains since setting primary net zero targets for themselves several years ago.
In the UK, corporate net zero targets are, to a degree, bound up with the government’s drive to achieve a zero emissions position by 2025 – something it has long pursued as a legally-binding target. But, with Larry The Cat witnessing yet another Prime Minister resigning at the lectern outside Number 10 this week, the future of that ambition and related policies will again come into some question.
Just a couple of weeks ago, the government said it would give all MPs a half-day debate to assess its latest net zero plans, following recommendations by the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). Now, there is speculation that the Prime-Minister-in-waiting Andy Burnham may make current (and somewhat controversial) Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, the new Chancellor in a cabinet shake-up, or at least change his role.
What that means for the policy measures the UK will employ to continue to pursue net zero remains to be seen. But, what it could mean, is that with the SBTI changes representing a more pragmatic approach to areas of emissions that companies don’t directly control, we may see a more assertive and measurable focus on those that they do – at least in the years to 2040.