SBTi Faces Staff Revolt after Trustees Greenlight Controversial Scope 3 Offsets

Climate watchdog Carbon Markets Watch condemned the move in no uncertain terms: “The Science Based Targets initiative appears to have buckled to pressure from carbon market players and corporate interests to allow companies to meet scope 3 targets with carbon credits, raising the risk that corporations can appear to be improving their climate performance on paper while actually spewing out more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

CMW Executive Director Sabine Frank remarked: “This decision defies both good governance and science. If it is not reversed, it will strip the SBTi of its ‘science-based’ nature and will mark a step back for voluntary climate initiatives globally. By granting excessive flexibility to companies, SBTi will lose its raison d’être: promoting robust and effective corporate climate action.”

Less than a week ago, CMW, NewClimate Institute, Greenpeace, BEUC, Changing Markets Foundation and Oxford Net Zero had urged the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI), the SBTi and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to refrain from granting companies the “flexibility” to offset a portion of their scope 3 (indirect value chain) emissions. “This approach is counterproductive, and largely backed by actors with direct financial interests in allowing this flexibility,” the letter said.

It appeared to have had little effect on SBTi, at least. The CMW, in fact, contended that the SBTi board had taken this decision without clearly consulting with the SBTi Technical Council and overturned a key policy within the corporate target-validation organisation.

The CMW statement went on to argue: “The SBTI initiated a call last year to gather evidence on the effectiveness of carbon credits in addressing climate action. In its announcement, the board acknowledges this but states that 'the use of environmental attribute certificates for abatement purposes on Scope 3 emissions could function as an additional tool to tackle climate change.'

“Notably, the board did not state that this conclusion was drawn from analysing the results of the call for evidence. Given the strong body of peer-reviewed literature demonstrating the various shortcomings of carbon offsets, not to mention the multitude of investigations demonstrating the failures of a range of specific projects, it is highly unlikely that the analysis of the evidence submitted to SBTI would be consistent with the conclusion that the Board has come to.”

SBTi faces open revolt

It's not that the SBTi move has been criticised only by watchdog critics—news agency Reuters has reported that SBTi staff have called for the ouster of the nonprofit's chief executive and the reversal of the plan to allow companies to use carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their value chain. The staff have accused SBTi's leadership of acting without a sound scientific basis, “throwing the group - whose role as the leading arbiter of how companies set climate targets exerts heavy influence over much of the corporate world - into turmoil.”

A letter to the CBTI's board of trustees and CEO, signed by staff from the Target Validation Team, Target Operations Team, the Technical Department, Communications, Impact and IT, and multiple department heads, has called for board members who supported the policy shift on offsets to resign.

Reuters quoted Stephan Singer, senior advisor at nonprofit Climate Action Network who resigned over the issue: “None of us were informed. It just came out of the blue.” Doreen Stabinksy, professor of global environmental politics at College of the Atlantic, called the posting of the move on the SBTi website “a major shock” that left staff “reeling.” She said: “This isn't a science-based decision.”