SBTi Just Halved Its 2030 Targets. Does Your Supply Chain Know?

Hey, thanks so much for listening. I would love to be able to help you more on what it is that you are listening to and why you're listening to me. If you could click on the link in the show notes, that would be awesome because it will help me define what it is that we should be talking about on this podcast. It'll be useful to you. So, I'm flagging it. And I think the fact that 8 major sustainability stories are still dominating the agenda a full week later tells you something important about the pace of change right now. The one genuine news story, which is number one, is significant enough personally, I think, on its own. The Science Based Targets initiative quietly revised its corporate net zero standard this week, in some cases roughly halving the minimum emission cuts required by 2030. Stay to the end to find out more. This week in sustainability, here are your top 10 stories ranked by what the world is talking about most. Number 10, Polestar pushes ahead with net-zero car target by 2035. This is directly relevant to automotive supply chains in both food and beverage and media, marketing and advertising, because fleet decarbonization is a growing Scope 3 reporting requirement. While most carmakers scrapped EV ambitions and rolled back sustainability reports, Polestar published a full product-level lifecycle analysis and reduced its carbon footprint per vehicle by 7.3% last year. The EU's incoming digital product passports for EVs mean businesses with fleets will soon need this level of data from their suppliers. Polestar's ahead of sustainability. And it said that they are doing this not just to be good, but to be smart. Number 9: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol appoints its first ever CEO. For any organization reporting under GHG Protocol standards, which is essentially every large business globally, this signals faster, more authoritative decisions on contested accounting questions. Tim Mohan has been appointed as the first paid CEO of the GHG Protocol after 25 years as a volunteer-led body. This matters because the Protocol is under real pressure right now. Apple, Amazon, and Schneider Electric all warned this week that proposed Scope 2 accounting changes could slow their energy transition. California's Scope 3 start date remains contested, and professional chief executive signals the Protocol is preparing to take Stronger positions. Number 8: EU revises sustainability reporting standards. 70% fewer data points. For FTSE and NASDAQ listed organizations preparing for CSRD, this is material cost relief without losing the strategic value of the framework. The European Commission released revised draft ESRS this week. The headline number is 70% cuts in mandatory data points. Critically, despite speculation, the Commission did not align with ISSB standards, which means European double materiality, reporting on both financial risk and impact on the world, is still intact. If you have already invested in CSRD readiness, this is good news on cost. It does not undermine the reason you started. Number 7, 82% of major corporations are holding or accelerating climate targets. This directly challenges the dominant narrative that ESG is in retreat and has real implications for procurement, investor reporting, and competitive positioning. A PwC global survey found 82% of major corporations are maintaining or accelerating their climate commitments. With decarbonization increasingly embedded into supply chains. The finding matters because it contradicts the headlines. ESG is not in retreat in boardrooms. Organizations that built early and built properly are finding their positions strengthening. Number 6, carbon removal is becoming a procurement category. For any business with a net-zero commitment and a long horizon, removal strategy, the market just moved significantly. 3 major deals landed this week. Living Carbon signed a $500 million agreement with Octopus Energy Generation for large-scale US reforestation removal. I think that happened last week. And this one did as well. Boeing purchased 20,000 tons of durable carbon removal through Supercritical across 4 countries. Deep Sky and Energy partnered on 15,000 direct air capture credits. This is no longer a research category. Businesses that understand credit quality tiers now will negotiate better when voluntary markets tighten. Number 5, France publishes its 2050 fossil fuel exit map. For European businesses planning long-horizon energy infrastructure and supply chain decisions, The policy trajectory from a major G7 government is now explicit. France unveiled a national roadmap to phase out fossil fuel entirely by 2050. This followed the Santa Marta Conference in Colombia, where 59 governments representing more than half of global GDP gathered for the world's first conference specifically focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels. The distinction between a roadmap and a pledge matters. A roadmap has milestones, accountability, and policy sequencing. Number four: The Iran war is accelerating the energy transition for any business with significant energy costs, fleet exposure, or fossil fuel dependence supply chains. This is the strategic inflection point of the year. The IEA's Fatih Birol told the government that U.S.-Iran. Conflict has broken the fossil fuel industry forever, shattering its image of reliability. At oil prices of $114 per barrel, the economics of solar, wind, heat pumps, and EVs have fundamentally shifted. European heat pump sales are 16.5% year on year up. In Costa Rica, 18% of new cars sold in Q1 2026 were electric, with one lawmaker explicitly citing energy sovereignty as the driver. Global green energy fund inflows in April hit their highest level since January 2021, and the transition is accelerating, driven not by climate conviction but by supply chain survival instinct. And at number 3, Peregrine Energy launches with 826 megawatts of European renewables for corporate buyers of of renewable energy through PPAs. This is more competitive counterparties, meaning better commercial terms. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners complete the acquisition of Ørsted's European onshore renewable business, launching its Pegasus Energy with 826 megawatts of operational and construction phase capacity across Ireland, Germany, the UK, and Spain. This creates a new focused European onshore renewables operator at the moment when continental electricity demand is entering its first sustained growth phase in over a decade. Watch this platform. For number 2, AI energy consumption has a 98% mystery. For any business with net-zero commitments, this is a Scope 3 accounting problem that most organizations have not yet addressed. The IEA published its most comprehensive energy and AI report this week using 2025 data. Global AI consumed 0.5% of global electricity last year. Data centers in total consumed 1.5%. But here is the puzzle: all of the world's chatbot queries account for approximately 2% of AI data energy use. Where does the 98% go? The most plausible explanation is diffusing Invisible deployment of AI across every internet interaction. The algorithm choosing your search results, moderating social media, targeting advertising, running enterprise tools in Microsoft Teams and Salesforce. By 2030, data center demand is expected to double. Most corporate net-zero strategies have not yet grappled with this. Number 1, SBTi quietly halves minimum 2030 emission targets. This is relevant for any organization with a validated science-based target or planning to set one. This is a material change to the rules of the game. The Science Based Targets initiative revised an appendix to its corporate net-zero standards this week, roughly halving the minimum near-term emissions reductions required in some cases by 2030. This was not announced with any fanfare. Eddie flagged it. on 14th of May. The revision means companies that set targets under the previous standard may now appear more ambitious than the BAR actually requires. For businesses using SBTi validation as a procurement signal or investor commitments, the question to ask is whether your suppliers' targets were set under the old standard or the new one. The floor just moved. And one more thing before the facts. 8 of those 10 stories were in last week's Countdown too. I nearly published a repeat. The news cycle in sustainability has been unusually quiet. Fewer genuinely news stories breaking this week than at most almost any point since January. What that tells me is that the stories already in motion— SBTi, AI, energy, the Iran transition, CSRD— are not resolved. They are still live, still moving, and still not addressed. By most of the organizations that need to act on them. Top 3 mind-blowing environmental facts from this week. The IEA says the Iran war has permanently altered fossil fuel markets, not temporarily. Countries that were energy dependent are now building renewables as national security infrastructure. Number 2, a 1,580-foot tsunami struck Alaska in August 2025, triggered by A glacier landslide dropping over 100 million tons of rock into a fjord. Almost no one noticed because it hit at 5 AM. Traditional tsunami warnings are useless for these events because the wave follows the collapse by seconds, not hours. As glaciers melt, this risk is growing across Arctic coastlines. And number 3, every $1 invested in climate-related health interventions delivers $68 in benefits. According to the World Resources Institute, yet fewer than half of the world's health ministries currently use climate data in their planning systems. If you want to be a part of our network, please DM me or comment below. And I can't believe it started raining halfway through that, and I'm now pretty soaked. I hope you have a lovely week and enjoy.

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