In my previous article we reviewed the green trends by industry. While companies are working hard to catch those trends or even creating new ones, they are still devoted to meeting their own corporate sustainability targets. You can find them in their own web pages so I thought it would be good to have a look at the main ones. There are several layers of goals so, in order to be consistent, I preferred to use the official commitments that companies set under the SBTi.
The SBTi, which stands for Science Based Targets Initiative, drives ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling organizations to set science-based emissions reduction targets. The SBTi is a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Setting a science based target is a brave, step-forward move for any multinational, as they are public and objectively verified. Some examples by industry:
Scope 1: direct greenhouse (GHG) emissions that occur from sources that are controlled or owned by an organization.
Scope 2: indirect GHG emissions associated with the purchase of electricity, steam, heat, or cooling.
Scope 3: emissions as the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization, but that the organization indirectly impacts in its value chain e.g. suppliers.
As of July, 24th 2022 there were 1837 companies committed plus 1573 with targets already set. In total 3410 companies are taking some type of SBT action. From the finance perspective it is important to stay alert on how our competitors move in this field in order to anticipate and keep, or even improve, your competitive advantage.