From Ambition to Action: SBTi Launches Version 2.0 of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard

On 11 June 2026, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) published Version 2.0 of its Corporate Net Zero Standard. This is the most significant overhaul of the world's leading corporate net zero framework since it launched in 2021.

Version 1 was designed to define what net zero meant for businesses in a landscape that was strong on the science (through IPCC reports), carbon accounting (through GHG Protocol standards), and even disclosure (through frameworks and initiatives like CDP and TCFD, which eventually fed into the IFRS Sustainability Standards), but was lacking a clear definition of what net zero actually looked like at the business scale.

Version 1 helped, and continues to help, companies commit and clarify a route to net zero, but as SBTi put it, "since then, the business, policy and scientific landscape has evolved significantly."

Version 2.0 therefore incorporates "advances in climate science, lessons learned from implementation, and extensive stakeholder feedback." It is built for a different moment: one in which over 11,000 companies have already set science based targets, and the question has shifted from whether to commit to how to deliver, bringing SBTi's 2026 to 2030 strategy, and its focus on implementation, to life.

A decade of commitment, now a decade of delivery

The revision ran for just over two years, from April 2024 to May 2026, built on two separate rounds of public consultation (the first from March to June 2025, the second from November to December 2025), supported throughout by pilot testing and input from expert working groups.

In his foreword to the new Standard, SBTi chair Francesco Starace frames the whole revision around a single piece of feedback the organisation kept hearing from the companies in its network: that committing to a target isn't the hardest part of the net zero journey - rather, delivery is.

"This updated Standard is our response to ten years of learning and listening." Francesco Starace, Chair, Science Based Targets initiative

That feedback is also why SBTi describes its own role shifting, in the foreword's words, from an organisation that primarily validates ambition to one that becomes, as CEO David Kennedy put it on launch day, "a partner that can help foster implementation." The Standard's development included close collaboration with the GHG Protocol, particularly on the time matching of scope 2 emissions and the use of market instruments, and continued engagement with ISO on its own developing net zero standard, in which CAFA participated alongside other expert organisations.

What's new

Under V1, a validated target was largely the end point of the process. V2.0 treats validation as the starting point instead, introducing annual progress reporting, periodic reassessment against a company's trajectory, and an expectation of continuous improvement, with corrective target-setting required where meaningful gaps emerge. The emphasis shifts from certifying ambition to tracking delivery over time.

To strengthen implementation, rather than leaving companies to determine their own sequencing of actions, the Standard sets an explicit order of preference:

1. direct emissions reductions across operations and value chains take priority

2. shared "activity pool" systems

3. then sector-level action, available to complement that work where direct decarbonisation is not yet feasible.

SBTi also introduced the notion of a "best efforts" basis for target delivery. The Standard explicitly acknowledges that factors outside a company's control, such as supply chain dependencies, technology availability, or the pace of partners' own transitions, can affect progress against a target. Companies are expected to use all available levers and remain transparent about implementation barriers and mitigating actions; provided they do so, they remain within the SBTi framework even where progress is uneven.

Version 2.0 also introduces a more structured treatment of carbon credits and ongoing emissions. The Standard introduces a voluntary recognition mechanism, Ongoing Emissions Responsibility, that allows companies to take and disclose action on residual emissions in the near term, alongside a longer-term requirement for Category A companies to take progressive, and eventually mandatory, responsibility for neutralising those emissions from 2035 onward. This replaces a previous approach that was voluntary throughout and less defined.

There are many other changes worth noting, including:

• the strengthened requirements of target integration into company strategy

• the revised differentiation of companies based on size and geography

• the increased short-term accountability

• target architecture

• Scope 3 requirements

• continuous process

These will all be explored in a free resource by CAFA about SBTi's Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0 for membership organisations, including trade associations, professional bodies and other organisations, that we will release to CAFA members. The standard itself can be accessed here.

Where this leaves companies now

Validation against V2.0 opens through SBTi Services in the first quarter of 2027, running alongside the current Standard until 31 January 2028, after which V2.0 becomes the only route for new submissions. Existing targets validated under V1 are expected to remain valid through their original target year, so nothing changes overnight for the more than 11,000 companies that already hold one.

The more immediate task, for most companies, is less about the deadline and more about the shift it represents. SBTi spent a decade building a network on the strength of commitment. Version 2.0 is its attempt to spend the next on the strength of delivery, and it has built a Standard, and a process, designed for it.

What to do next as a membership organisation

This new version aligns with a movement across the climate and net zero space, whereby standards align to each other and create the framework for delivery. Version 2.0 of this standard is the first official step in this direction. ISO's public consultation on the ISO 14060 standard will soon follow - and we can later expect GHG Protocol and ISO harmonisation on carbon accounting standards to conclude this landscape alignment.

If you're a membership organisation and not yet a member of CAFA, we strongly encourage you to join the CAFA Collective for free, to receive upcoming assets and resources on these standards, to share freely with your members. Join here.