Of the 25 companies in the study, only three—A.P.
SBTi Managing Director Alberto Carrillo Pineda told Climate Home he “welcomes stronger scrutiny”, adding that many of the issues identified in the report were addressed in a new net-zero standard the initiative introduced last October.
Climate Home cites SBTi as “the most prominent standard-setter for corporate climate targets globally, having endorsed more than a thousand as in line with international climate goals.” But NCI said the organization has a conflict of interest, since it receives up to US$14,500 for each validation report it produces.
Climate Home has examples of companies that received high ratings from SBTi, but low ratings in the NCI/CMW report, and documents the response from Nestlé and Ikea.
This is not the first time SBTi’s approach has faced tough criticism, Climate Home notes.
With seven possible assessment methodologies to choose from, Baue said at the time, SBTi initially accepted an approach developed by the U.S.-based Center for Sustainable Organizations , before dropping it from its toolkit.