SBTi validates 10,000th target
‘The numbers keep growing, so let’s not get carried away with all the negative news,’ said chief technical officer
The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) will validate its 10,000th company this week.
Speaking on a webinar on Tuesday, Alberto Carrillo Pineda, the non-profit’s chief technical officer, said it would soon announce that “we are crossing the mark of 10,000 companies with validated targets”.
“In ten years, basically, the factor of companies that have set targets has exploded by 1,000,” he told the audience.
“We’re not talking about a handful of companies on the most progressive side of the spectrum of climate action [anymore] – we’re talking about companies across every sector and every geography that are trying to find a way to transform their business model.”
Since the beginning of 2024, Carrillo Pineda continued, the number of companies with SBTi targets has tripled.
“So just in these past two years, when I know it feels challenging at times, the numbers keep growing […] so let’s not get carried away with all the negative news, and really look at the data.”
Recent research by climate transition data specialist Forward Analytics shows that, in some key sectors, there is a correlation between SBTi validation and meaningful net-zero alignment.
“In the steel sector, for example, SBTi-validated companies perform better,” explained founder Moritz Baer.
“In our data set, of the 22 steel companies with SBTi targets, 17 are projected to deliver on net-zero alignment in 2030, based on their current capital expenditure and asset expansion plans.”
The pattern is visible, although less pronounced, in the power sector, where 84 companies within Forward Analytics’ universe have SBTi-validated targets.
“Out of those, 66% are projected to be aligned with net zero in 2030 based on the data available, versus 60% on average,” Baer told Real Economy Progress.
“So, in principle, that could suggest that companies with SBTi targets are actually delivering more on their targets than others, although the sample size is too small to know for sure.”
SBTi is currently in the process of updating its Corporate Net Zero Standard, which Carrillo Pineda said centred on “how we can provide more clarity to companies in terms of how to implement those targets”.
“How can we recognise the fact that companies are taking action to reduce their emissions and to transform the operations and value chain? And how can we continue to incentivise this journey?” he said.
SBTi’s recent consultation on the revisions received more than 900 responses, making it the initiative’s “most popular” feedback topic so far.
Real Economy Progress is currently running a series on the state of corporate net-zero targets. Subscribe for free to receive the articles to your inbox on Monday mornings.