Create Emissions Reduction Commitments
Create emissions reduction commitments to initiate a formal engagement with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). SBTi requires commitments to be in the form of a commitment letter. Submitting a commitment letter to SBTi indicates your company’s intent to work towards setting science-based emissions reduction targets that are in line with the SBTi’s criteria and guidelines.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience |
| Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
| Permission Set Needed | |
|---|---|
| To enter and modify data: | Net Zero Cloud Manager OR Net Zero Cloud Admin |
You can create your company’s internal and external commitments to reduce its carbon emissions. External commitments are submitted to a climate initiative or program, such as SBTi, and must be in line with the Paris Agreement. Internal commitments are created to track climate commitments within your company. You must get your commitments approved internally by the necessary stakeholders, and use the approved commitments to fill out SBTi’s Business Ambition for 1.5°C commitment letter to commit to the highest levels of climate ambition. Upon approval by SBTi, you can upload your commitment documents and track your commitment in Net Zero Cloud.
To create commitments:
- From Science-Based Targets, click Create Commitments.
- On Create Emissions Reduction Commitments, click New.
- Enter a record name.
- Select the status of your company's climate commitment. This field is used to track the progress of your commitment.
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Select the commitment program:
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1.5°C: If your company aligns its emissions reduction targets to limit global warming to 1.5°C. In December 2021, SBTi increased the minimum scope 1 and 2 ambition from Well-below 2°C to 1.5°C.
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2°C: If your company aligns its emissions reduction targets to limit global warming to 2°C. SBTi no longer considers this commitment as sufficient or ambitious enough. This was the minimum level of acceptable ambition prior to 2019.
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Net Zero: If your company wants a long term commitment to set SBTs consistent with limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, to reach net zero emissions by no later than 2050. This commitment maps to SBTi’s Net Zero Standard by which companies must set both near term and long term SBTs. The long term target of reaching net zero must be achieved no later than 2050 (or 2040 for the power sector).
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Well below 2°C: If your company aligns its emissions reduction targets to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre industrial levels. In 2019, SBTi raised the minimum level of acceptable ambition from 2°C to well below 2°C.
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Custom: If your company wants to set its own vision or commitment, or associate itself with a program that has a specific ambition, then you can use this commitment type.
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- If you select Custom as the commitment type, enter the name of the custom commitment type. For example, if you want to create an internal commitment for a business unit or a more ambitious commitment for the whole company, select the Custom commitment type and enter the custom commitment type as Internal Commitment.
- Select the company type and the sector in which your company operates. Company sector is based on the SBTi sector classification.
- Enter information for any optional fields.
- If the total number of employees in your company is fewer than 500 employees, select the Small and medium enterprise checkbox.
- Save your changes.
Next Steps
Follow these steps to continue your commitment process:
- Review the emissions reduction commitment record and share it with your internal stakeholders for their review and approval. You can use New Task in the Activity section of the commitment record to create a review task for each stakeholder so that they are automatically notified of the task along with its due date. Set the status of your emissions reduction commitment record to Submitted for Internal Approval.
- Register with your commitment program. For SBTI, register online using the SBTi commitment process. For small and medium enterprises (independent, non-subsidiary companies with fewer than 500 employees), you can submit targets to bypass the initial step of committing to set a science-based target. For more information, see Target setting application for SMEs.
- Once the commitment is approved by internal stakeholders, submit your commitment to your commitment program. For SBTi, submit your commitment to commitments@sciencebasedtargets.org. For more information, see Science Based Targets initiative commitment letter. The commitment includes a confirmation to commit to net zero by 2050 at the latest and to join the Business Ambition for 1.5°C and the Race to Zero. Set the status of your emissions reduction commitment record to Submitted to Climate Body.
- Once your commitment is approved by your commitment program, your company is recognized as committed. For SBTi, your company is recognized as committed on sciencebasedtargets.org, as well as on their partner websites We Mean Business and UN Global Compact. Set the status of your emissions reduction commitment record to Committed.
- Enter these details in your emissions reduction commitment record and save your
changes:
- Enter the date when the climate change organization associated with the commitment program approved your commitment.
- Upload your company's commitment letter.
- Enter the deadline to set your climate targets from the commitment date. For SBTi, you have 24 months from the commitment approval date to submit your targets.
- Select the Target used for forecasting checkbox if you want to use the targets from this commitment for emissions forecasting in Net Zero Cloud.
