The UN has removed companies from validation processes for their climate plans due to failing to submit ambitious climate targets. SBTi, a standard-setting body, checks these targets to align with global warming goals, forcing companies to revise plans.
Hundreds of companies, including Microsoft, Unilever, and JBS, have been removed from a validation process for their climate plans after failing to submit sufficiently ambitious climate targets. More than 1,000 companies representing $23tn in market capitalisation responded to a call before the UN COP26 climate summit in 2021 to commit to setting net zero emissions goals. Since then, the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), a standard-setting body backed by a coalition of non-profit organisations, has provided a check on those targets to determine whether they are in line with a global goal to limit warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels as set out in the Paris climate accord in 2015.
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Many companies have forced to revise their plans as they reached the 2023 year end, marking the end of a two-year deadline. This has led to their removal from the approval process by SBTi. Companies argue that governments have not created the policy frameworks needed to achieve emissions reductions, making it difficult for them to move as fast as they originally thought. The world has already warmed by at least 1.1C, and must cut emissions by 43% by 2030 in order not to breach the 1.5C level, scientists say.
Of the 1,045 companies that joined the Business Ambition for the 1.5C campaign between 2019 and 2021, more than 230 have not submitted climate targets as promised. This has led to them marked as “removed” on SBTi’s website this week. The removed label, applied to about 500 companies in the database in total, may also mean that a company has submitted a target that SBTi rejected for not being strong enough.
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Unilever is among the companies that have not submitted their target to reach net zero emissions for verification by SBTi. It recently released a revised climate action plan that stretches out 15 years to 2039. Under the updated plan, it aims for a 42% cut between 2021 and 2030 in energy and industrial emissions from its clients and suppliers, known as scope 3 emissions.
