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These resources will help you to identify and develop credible goals and interim targets that adhere to relevant social and environmental thresholds and clearly outline the actions your company will take, including the scale, scope, and pace of change.
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Are you designing new goals or interested in benchmarking your goals against leading practice? To help advance progress in setting credible goals, we will maintain a public goals database containing leading sustainability goals and commitments set by large companies globally. Search by issue, company, industry, goal type, or SDG target.
If you are aware of goals that take a credible approach that should be featured in our database, please let us know.
It is time for companies to take a very different approach to corporate strategy.
Our Embedded Strategies guide helps companies respond to the growing calls for businesses to articulate their purpose and their strategy in alignment with the need to shift the global economy towards the reduction of inequality, a rapid climate transition, the preservation of biodiversity, and the elimination of waste.
This guide will help you to develop a contextual strategy and goals that ensure your company is doing its part to maintain the resilience of key social and environmental systems.
Building on our Road to Context guide with insights from 300+ interviews with senior executives, CEOs, board chairs, and directors, as well as our experiences supporting companies around the world, it outlines resources and tactics that can help your company to scan for emerging issues and risks; understand their implications for your business; understand your impacts and your potential for positive influence; prioritise where it makes sense to direct your efforts; and set your strategy and goals in alignment with delivering systems value.
This comprehensive database from the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) can help you to effectively integrate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into your reporting processes. It features a comprehensive inventory of potential disclosures at the targets level for each of the SDGs, and allows you to search by SDG and SDG target, sector, and source. This resource will be most useful to sustainability teams seeking to align their reporting with global goals.
The SDG Compass aims to provide guidance to companies to help align their strategies and measure their contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals. Of particular value is step 3 (setting goals), which focuses on setting specific, measurable, and time-bound corporate sustainability goals across the organisation.
This guide establishes an initial set of benchmarks that can help your company to set the kinds of ambitious goals and targets that are required to achieve the SDGs by 2030.
The SDG Ambition Benchmark Reference Sheets complement the Ambition Guide. These sheets explain the business value of each respective benchmark; provide illustrative details on the steps for integrating each of the SDG Ambition Benchmarks into your company’s business systems; feature examples of leading industry efforts; and highlight preliminary actions and key questions related to integration and implementation.
This comprehensive report from SustainAbility provides clear insights on the value of setting, pursuing, achieving, and reporting on sustainability goals. The report explores current best practices for ensuring goals deliver maximum business value and broader societal impact, explains the value of context-based goals, identifies key barriers to setting high-impact goals, and offers methods for overcoming them.
Developed by WBCSD and now a part of ESG Book, the Reporting Exchange is a free online platform that connects you to reliable, comparable information on sustainability reporting requirements and resources. The platform provides detailed, up-to-date coverage from 60 countries and across dozens of sectors, and will help change agents, investors, and leaders within your company who want relevant resources for comparing, preparing, and delivering corporate sustainability reports. The platform's global database contains mandatory and voluntary disclosure requirements, sustainability ratings, rankings, and indexes, and allows you to connect, share, and track relevant updates.
Customers, employees, communities, and even shareholders are demanding meaningful corporate action on sustainability. This blog post lists seven straight-forward questions to help you assess your company’s existing goals, or to consider as you develop your next round of sustainability goals.
Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is a collaboration of 45+ global non-profits and mission-driven organizations working together to develop guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth’s systems. Science Based Targets has created a five-step target-setting framework that helps you to assess; interpret and prioritise; measure, set, and disclose; act upon; and track your science-based goals. They have also created sector-specific guidance and target monitoring for companies and financial institutions.
At present, Science Based Targets helps companies to develop their goals based on the latest science: SBTi specifically focuses on GHG emission reduction goals, and SBTN specifically focuses on nature positive goals, with target-setting guidance for land, biodiversity, and freshwater. Their respective websites provide comprehensive resources, cases, and support for taking credible action.
This report from the Science-Based Targets Initiative can help you to present a strong business case for setting and delivering upon science-based climate-related targets. The report - which is underpinned by a survey of 171 companies, a literature review of 22 studies, and three case studies - indicates that companies enjoy a broad range of positive effects as a result of setting science-based targets, including improved investor relations, better financing terms, enhanced strategic cohesion, greater alignment with suppliers, resilience across multiple areas of risk, and a faster pace of decarbonisation. This resource will be especially helpful to climate action and strategy professionals.
The Science Based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 includes the guidance, criteria, and recommendations companies need to set science-based net-zero targets consistent with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
V2.0 is a full revision of the standard, and it intends to help companies secure senior leadership buy-in and establish net-zero governance that supports target setting and implementation; assess and select a target base year; set near-term science-based targets for rapid, deep emissions cuts across Scopes 1, 2, and 3; understand and apply a hierarchy of implementation actions; report and assess target progress; and ensure ongoing emissions responsibility.
Momentum is growing for organisations to formally and transparently articulate the risks that climate change poses to the value of their assets and their future profitability. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) emerged as a response to this call for action, empowering companies to more effectively measure and evaluate their own risks and those of their suppliers and competitors. The TCFD promoted “consistent, comparable, reliable, clear, and efficient” voluntary climate-related financial disclosures, and has developed comprehensive recommendations and resources in support of this. These resources focus on governance, strategy, risk, metrics, targets, and the use of scenario analysis for evaluating climate-related financial risks and opportunities.
The TCFD has produced a comprehensive Final Recommendations report and several supplemental reports, including a Technical supplement, which provides in-depth information and tools for using scenario analyses to understand the strategic implications of climate-related risks and opportunities to your organisation.
Although these resources remain to be an invaluable source of guidance, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and IFRS have announced that the TCFD has fulfilled its remit and disbanded, and that monitoring of the progress of corporate climate-related disclosures now rests with the IFRS Foundation's ISSB.
A guide for leaders of companies of all sizes to understand the basics of Scope 3 emissions and how companies should begin to take credible action. The guidance is anchored in the real-world experience of companies that are already navigating this journey.
The Future-Fit Business Benchmark is a free open-source tool grounded in systems science, and is designed to help companies assess where they are relative to necessary levels of environmental and social performance. The Benchmark includes an Action Guide and Methodology Guide that outline categories of positive environmental and social impacts and help companies articulate and quantify their unique contributions in a consistent framing (Positive Pursuits). It also describes areas of environmental and social footprint that represent risk areas to businesses and external stakeholders until they are addressed (Break-Even Goals). The Benchmark guidance also aligns with the UN SDGs. By using Future-Fit's guidance and metrics, companies can clearly understand and credibly communicate their contribution to the SDGs.
In this episode of the Climate Confident (formerly Climate 21) podcast, Stephanie Bertels - Founder and Executive Director of The Embedding Project - discusses why climate change matters, why it's an immediate and pressing issue for all businesses, and why companies need to build capacity now if they want to achieve long-range targets that meet the needs of the planet. She discusses these topics within the context of our Sustainability Goals Database, and explains the criteria we use and the trends we are seeing in corporate goal setting. This podcast is a great introduction to our Goals Database, and will especially benefit those whose organisation is in the process of developing their own climate change-related goal(s).
This report from Ceres makes the business case for climate transition action plans (CTAPs) in response to climate-related risks, opportunities, and regulations. The report provides specific ways companies can create a leading plan across six action areas, including goal- and target-setting, decarbonising the business, ensuring a just transition, advocating for public policy, supporting integration and accountability, and tracking and reporting progress. By developing a credible and effective CTAP, companies can better position themselves for not just compliance but success in the low-carbon-economy.
The Task Force for Corporate Action Transparency (TCAT) is a new initiative dedicated to strengthening the credibility of corporate climate action through transparent, verified, and third-party assurable accounting and reporting guidance. Until now, companies have been able to report numerical emissions data through frameworks like the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol or set reduction targets through initiatives like the Science Based Targets initiative. However, these frameworks lack standardised methods for companies to report the specific actions behind those reductions (e.g. transport companies replacing diesel trucks with electric vehicles, manufacturers capturing and storing carbon dioxide in underground reservoirs, etc). TCAT intends to develop, publish, and promote technical guidance and methodologies that help companies report emissions reduction and removal efforts transparently and clearly, and address gaps in financial and GHG accounting, reporting, and assurance by developing and aligning with best-in-class standards and practices
TCAT has launched two comprehensive GHG reporting frameworks. Developed through a collaboration among environmental groups, accounting experts, NGOs, business practitioners, and civil society members, the guides are designed to help companies explain exactly how they are lowering their emissions in real time, and in a way that is comparable across industries and verifiable by third parties. These guides are designed to fill an important gap in how companies measure, report on, and verify their corporate climate actions.
The first framework is Mitigation Action Accounting and Reporting Guidance (MAARG), which equips companies with tools to account transparently for the full spectrum of ton-denominated climate actions. Its multi-statement approach enables companies to report on climate actions without conflating different types of activities; MAARG’s framework allows each action to be clearly categorised and measured. Rather than consolidating all GHG-related activities into a single statement, which can obscure the distinction between actual emission reductions and accounting-only or business changes, MAARG introduces a five-statement reporting framework which supports both inventory and impact accounting: physical inventory statement, contractual inventory statement, inventory impact mitigation statement, sector impact mitigation statement, and global impact mitigation statement.
TCAT’s second new framework is the Target Accounting and Reporting Guidance (TARG), which provides structured guidance for setting voluntary climate targets, tracking progress, and communicating results. This standardised approach enables stakeholders to assess the credibility and ambition of corporate climate targets and evaluate actual performance against commitments. In the absence of a unified framework in the voluntary reporting space, TARG fills a critical gap by offering clear and consistent methods for companies to disclose climate targets and report progress in a transparent and assurable manner. The framework is built around five core reporting elements: a target commitment report, base year emissions report, mitigation action report, target accounting report, and target attainment report.
Building on the momentum of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) is a collaboration of 45+ global non-profits and mission-driven organizations working together to develop guidance to set science-based targets for all of Earth’s systems. Science Based Targets has created a five-step target-setting framework that helps you to assess; interpret and prioritise; measure, set, and disclose; act upon; and track your science-based goals. They have also created sector-specific guidance and target monitoring for companies and financial institutions.
At present, Science Based Targets helps companies to develop their goals based on the latest science: SBTi specifically focuses on GHG emission reduction goals, and SBTN specifically focuses on nature positive goals, with target-setting guidance for land, biodiversity, and freshwater. Their respective websites provide comprehensive resources, cases, and support for taking credible action.
There is an inextricable link beween the crises of climate change and nature loss, and yet a sizeable gap remains for information that supports companies with protecting and restoring nature. Towards meeting this challenge, the Science Based Targets Network has published interim guidance to help companies set targets that account for biodiversity, freshwater use, and ocean and ecosystem integrity. This guidance is modelled from the SBTi framework, and includes a five-stage process that will help you to assess, prioritise, measure and set targets, and take action, as well as track your progress, impacts, dependencies on environmental systems.
This report from the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) can help you to better understand the benefits of setting science-based targets for nature.S he report summarises insights shared during interviews with fourteen companies applying the SBTN framework, revealing six key areas of business value in taking science-based action on nature issues: protected revenue and market access; lower cost of credibility; better decisions and more focused resources; greater confidence in what action is needed; a common framework for stronger ownership and execution; and future-proofing how the business manages nature. It also features sector insights to highlight what leaders are doing and features practical lessons from company experiences. This report will be especially beneficial to sustainability professionals, and especially in adapting and relaying these insights to senior leaders.
The global biodiversity framework (GBF) that is being developed under the Convention on Biological Diversity intends to ensure that by 2050 humanity is 'living in harmony with nature'. However, the authors of this paper argue that the draft goals and targets - as they are currently articulated - do not specify explicit, measurable goals that can credibly achieve this outcome. This paper makes the case for distinct outcome goals for species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity, and it outlines seven general principles to underpin smart and effective net outcome goal-setting. These principles can help you to better understand the benefits and shortcomings of broad "net outcome" goals (such as "no net loss") and can support your process for creating and implementing credible biodiversity goals.
This report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Natural Capital Finance Alliance (NCFA) was created to highlight the need for banks, insurers, and investors to set strong biodiversity targets. This resource can help you to understand why nature is important to financial institutions; which sectors have the greatest impact and dependence on biodiversity; and how to use this knowledge to inform biodiversity target-setting.
This guide from the WWF builds upon their Putting Water Strategy into Context report and introduces a five-step target-setting framework that can help you to draw on local water context to set contextual water targets at both a corporate- and site-level. The guide also provides a primer on other commonly used water–related targets types (non–contextual, contextual, and science–based) and explains how they relate and can complement one another.
The world’s water resources are under growing pressure, and a growing number of companies are setting catchment-based water targets to help secure water for the growing needs of all users. If your company is looking to address its water impact from a contextual perspetive, this guide is an excellent starting point. The guide explains fundamental definitions; explains the elements most crucial for setting site water targets that reflect the catchment context; and includes a "stoplight" system for early, high-level assessment of water challenges. A separate set of case studies are also available.
This comprehensive guide from the TNFD breaks down the process of aligning transition planning with the goals and targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) and can help you to develop a coherent set of forward-looking nature-related strategies, actions, and accountability mechanisms that are built into your organisation’s overarching business strategy. It provides detailed information on nature in transition planning; how to incorporate nature into a transition plan; and how to disclose information about nature in a transition plan. The guide builds on best practices for climate transition plans, including the approach proposed by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) and Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT), and will be especially beneficial to senior leaders and other professionals tasked with communicating how your organisation plans to respond and contribute to the transition implied by both the Paris Agreement and the GBF.
This paper from WRI can help you to better understand a common blind spot in how large companies set supply chain sustainability goals: the lack of focus on people, and especially on small suppliers, workers, and communities. Analysing over 1,000 goals from nearly 700 global firms, the paper found that only 12% of large companies have people-centered supply chain goals, and that 90% of corporate supply chain sustainability goals are designed to push or pull direct suppliers rather than create partnerships of mutual value. The paper highlights missed opportunities to invest in skills, financing, and long-term partnerships, and features three priority guiding questions and examples to help your company move beyond top-down approaches and foster more inclusive, mutually beneficial supply chain strategies.
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