Today is Thursday, 01 August 2024.
Today we give space to important news by Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) published last 30th Jul 2024. As such, we break the series of climate finance posts - after IOSCO, COP29 and U.S. Treasury - which you can always revisit in our portal.
SBTi was in the news last 9 April 2024 with the “Statement from the SBTi Board of Trustees on use of environmental attribute certificates, including but not limited to voluntary carbon markets, for abatement purposes limited to scope 3”.
This announcement generated a mix of euphoria and indignation, indignation mainly by part of SBTi employees themselves, indicating specially the lack of sufficient previous consultation on the topic, adherence to their “standard operating procedures”. This imbroglio led to another release, the “Update 19 April 2024 to the Statement of the SBTi Board of 9 April 2024”.
On 2 July 2024, the CEO of SBTi left his position “for personal reasons”.
This most recent publication is titled “SBTi releases technical publications in an early step in the Corporate Net-Zero Standard review” and discloses four technical outputs as an early step in the process for the revision of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard. They are:
(1) Scope 3 discussion paper: of informative by nature, setting out the SBTi’s initial thinking on potential changes being explored around scope 3 target setting, including underlying principles and concepts.
(2) Evidence received on the effectiveness of Environmental Attribute Certificates: release of all evidence submitted as part of the open call for evidence which ran September to November 2023 on the effectiveness of Environmental Attribute Certificates (without SBTi assessment). We highlighted this public consultation, remember?
(3) Synthesis report of evidence on the effectiveness of Environmental Attribute Certificates in corporate climate targets – Part 1: Carbon credits (Parts 2 and 3 still to be published): A report presenting the SBTi’s synthesis of the evidence submitted through the call for evidence on the effectiveness of carbon credits in corporate climate targets.
(4) Findings of independent systematic review on the effectiveness of carbon credits in corporate climate targets: A statement summarizing the findings of the assessment conducted by an independent third party on peer-reviewed academic literature on the effectiveness of carbon credits when used as a substitute for direct abatement.
We all know that what matters is direct decarbonization of the value chain and credits cannot be used as a substitute for this.
But should then Environmental Attribute Certificates, such as carbon credits, be positioned as one of the last steps?
“Targets are the first step to decarbonization.” as indicated by SBTi’s interim CEO, after saying that “over the last decade, the SBTi has validated the targets of over 5,000 companies with another 3,000 companies having committed to submit targets for SBTi validation.”
And some parts of the World have already reported strong decarbonization results, in spite of the “weather oddities” we see more and more.
Click at the image below to read more and participate. Documents only for English speakers, unfortunately.
SBTi, a partnership between CDP, United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the WWF, has one goal: to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Promoting scientific targets.
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