This guide is for the sustainability lead at a company somewhere between 100 and 1,000 employees who has been told, usually in a board meeting, that "we need SBTi targets." By the end of it you will know exactly what numbers you need, which pathway to pick, how to size a Scope 3 target that won't get rejected, and what goes in the submission packet that the Science Based Targets initiative validates.
No motivational preamble. Let's walk through one company, start to finish.
The company in this example
"Northline Components" — made up, but calibrated to a shape we see often:
- 300 employees
- Two manufacturing sites (one in Germany, one in Poland)
- Annual revenue around €90M
- Mid-tier automotive supplier, producing metal and polymer parts
- Has never submitted to SBTi before
- Has a rough Scope 1+2 inventory from 2023 in a spreadsheet, no Scope 3 yet
They want a near-term, 1.5°C-aligned target validated by SBTi within the next 9 months. That's the goal. Everything below is what it actually takes.
Prerequisites: what you need before you start
- A GHG inventory for your chosen base year. Scope 1 and Scope 2 are mandatory. Scope 3 is required if it's more than 40% of total emissions, which — spoiler — it almost always is for a manufacturer.
- A target year between 5 and 10 years from the year you submit. Submit in 2026, your target year can be anywhere from 2031 to 2036.
- A long-term net-zero horizon no later than 2050. SBTi's Corporate Net-Zero Standard requires both near-term and long-term commitments — people forget the second one and get flagged in validation.
- Board-level sign-off on the ambition. SBTi won't validate a target your CFO hasn't seen.
If any of those are missing, stop reading and go fix them first. Everything else assumes you have these.
Step 1: Calculate base year emissions
Northline picks 2023 as the base year. SBTi allows any year no more than two years before submission, so 2023 or 2024 would both be valid when submitting in 2026. They pick 2023 because it's the first year they have reasonably clean utility data for both sites.
Here's what the inventory looks like after three weeks of digging through gas meters, diesel receipts, and electricity invoices:
Scope 1 (direct combustion)
- Natural gas for process heat and building HVAC: 1,850 tCO2e
- Forklift diesel and company vehicles: 310 tCO2e
- Refrigerant leakage (2 chillers): 140 tCO2e
- Scope 1 subtotal: 2,300 tCO2e
Scope 2 (purchased electricity, location-based)
- Germany site: 2,800 MWh × grid factor 380 gCO2/kWh = 1,064 tCO2e
- Poland site: 5,100 MWh × grid factor 795 gCO2/kWh = 4,055 tCO2e
- Steam purchased for the German site: 981 tCO2e
- Scope 2 subtotal: 6,100 tCO2e
Scope 1+2 total: 8,400 tCO2e.
Then they do the thing most companies put off: a Scope 3 screening. They don't need a surgical inventory for target-setting — they need a reasonable magnitude per category so they can test the 40% rule. Using spend-based factors on procurement data and volume-based factors on logistics:
- Category 1 (Purchased goods and services): 38,000 tCO2e
- Category 4 (Upstream transportation): 4,100 tCO2e
- Category 6 (Business travel): 260 tCO2e
- Category 7 (Employee commuting): 520 tCO2e
- Category 11 (Use of sold products): 21,000 tCO2e
- Category 12 (End-of-life): 1,900 tCO2e
- Scope 3 screening total: ~65,780 tCO2e
Scope 3 is roughly 88% of total emissions (65,780 / 74,180). Well over 40%. A Scope 3 target is mandatory.
Step 2: Pick a target year
Northline submits in November 2026. That means the target year must fall between 2031 and 2036. They pick 2033 — seven years out. Why not 2030?
Because 2030 targets submitted in late 2026 are mathematically almost impossible to hit. You have three full calendar years to deliver what the pathway math expects to take seven. SBTi reviewers flag this as "target year too close" and often reject it.
Why not 2036? Because investors and customers increasingly look for targets that resolve inside a CDP reporting window. Seven years is the sweet spot: long enough to actually do the work, short enough that the CEO who signed it is still around to be accountable.
Step 3: Pick a pathway method
For Scope 1+2, SBTi offers two main pathway methods for most companies:
- Absolute Contraction Approach (ACA) — the cross-sector default. 1.5°C aligned = roughly 4.2% linear annual reduction in absolute emissions. Well-Below-2°C aligned = roughly 2.5% annual.
- Sectoral Decarbonization Approach (SDA) — only if you're in an eligible sector (power generation, cement, steel, aluminum, pulp and paper, some transport modes). SDA is intensity-based and tied to sector-specific 1.5°C pathways.
Northline makes metal and polymer automotive parts. They are not in an SDA-eligible sector (SDA applies to the steel producer their parts are made from, not to them). They use ACA.
Running the ACA math
Base year 2023: 8,400 tCO2e Target year 2033: 10 years later
ACA linear annual reduction for 1.5°C = 4.2% Total reduction over 10 years = 42%
But wait — SBTi measures the reduction from base year to target year, not compound. It's a linear contraction. So:
- 2023 emissions: 8,400 tCO2e
- Required 2033 emissions: 8,400 × (1 − 0.42) = 4,872 tCO2e
- Required absolute reduction: 3,528 tCO2e over 10 years
That's the minimum for 1.5°C. Many companies commit to slightly more than the minimum to give themselves headroom. Northline rounds to a cleaner public number:
Near-term target: 30% absolute reduction in Scope 1+2 emissions by 2030 (from 8,400 → 5,880 tCO2e, base year 2023)
Wait — didn't we just say target year should be 2033? Yes, and this is where most companies trip. SBTi now expects the minimum ambition across the full period. If Northline wants to publicly state a 2030 milestone for marketing reasons, they can — but the validated target is for 2033. So the cleaner version:
Near-term target (validated): 42% absolute reduction in Scope 1+2 by 2033, from a 2023 base year.
Keep the marketing-friendly 2030 milestone internally, but submit the 2033 number.
Step 4: Set the Scope 3 target
This is the step that gets rejected most often. Two options for Scope 3:
Option 1 — Absolute reduction. Same ACA method, but SBTi allows a lower ambition for Scope 3: at minimum a linear 2.5% annual reduction, i.e. 25% over 10 years. For Northline: 65,780 × 0.75 = 49,335 tCO2e by 2033.
Option 2 — Supplier engagement target. Instead of reducing your Scope 3 absolute number, you commit that a percentage of your suppliers (by emissions or spend) will have their own SBTi-validated targets by a given date. A typical validated form: "67% of our suppliers by spend, covering purchased goods and upstream transport, will have SBTi-approved targets by 2029."
Northline goes with a hybrid: supplier engagement for Category 1 and Category 4 (where they have leverage but not direct control), and absolute reduction for Category 11 (use of sold products — where product design is directly theirs).
Scope 3 target:
- 67% of suppliers (by emissions, covering Cat 1 + Cat 4) will have SBTi-validated targets by 2029
- 30% absolute reduction in Category 11 (use of sold products) emissions by 2033 from a 2023 base year
This is defensible. Supplier engagement targets need to cover at least 67% of relevant Scope 3 emissions — that threshold comes from the current Corporate Net-Zero Standard and is where reviewers look first.
Step 5: Don't forget the long-term net-zero target
People submit near-term and assume they're done. They aren't. The Corporate Net-Zero Standard requires a long-term target consistent with reaching net zero across all scopes by 2050 at the latest, with at least a 90% absolute reduction versus the base year before residual emissions can be neutralized.
For Northline:
Long-term target: 90% absolute reduction in Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 2045 from a 2023 base year, with remaining residual emissions neutralized via permanent carbon removals.
The year 2045 is a choice. SBTi allows anywhere from "achievement of near-term" through 2050. Earlier is better for credibility. 2045 is a common landing spot for manufacturers.
Step 6: Prepare the submission packet
Once the numbers are set, the submission isn't dramatic. You fill out SBTi's Target Submission Form (an Excel file), attach supporting documentation, and pay the booking fee (currently in the $1,000–$14,500 range depending on company size; Northline, with ~€90M revenue, lands near the lower end).
What goes in:
- Company details and SBTi commitment letter signature from an executive officer.
- Base year inventory (Scope 1+2 with calculation methodology, Scope 3 screening by category).
- Near-term target(s) — scope, base year, target year, reduction percentage, pathway method.
- Long-term net-zero target — same structure.
- Scope 3 target with a clear statement of coverage (what percentage of total Scope 3 the target covers — it needs to be at least 67%).
- Supporting documentation for any assumptions (grid emission factors used, spend-based vs volume-based method choices, supplier engagement program evidence if using that approach).
SBTi validation typically takes 30 to 60 days from submission to outcome. Expect one round of comments asking for clarification on Scope 3 methodology — it happens to roughly three out of four first-time submitters.
Common mistakes
- Target year set to 2030 on every submission, regardless of submission date. If you submit in 2026, 2030 is four years out — below the five-year floor. Your target won't be accepted.
- Scope 3 ambition set too low or coverage below 67%. Reviewers look at coverage before they look at ambition. A weak target on 95% of Scope 3 gets further than a strong target on 40%.
- Submitting only a near-term target and ignoring the long-term net-zero piece. Under the Corporate Net-Zero Standard, both are required together.
- Using Scope 2 market-based factors without also reporting location-based. SBTi requires dual reporting during validation.
- Base year shifting between inventory revisions. If you recalculate Scope 3 with a better method two years after submission, you may trigger a base-year recalculation — and SBTi has rules about when that's allowed.
A note on v6.0
SBTi is moving toward the Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2 (the v6.0 governance track) through 2025 and 2026. The draft includes meaningful changes to how Scope 3 is structured — more focus on high-emission categories, tighter definitions of supplier engagement quality, and explicit treatment of neutralization versus compensation. If you are submitting before the new standard is in force, you submit against the current standard and are not retroactively re-validated. If you can wait and your board can wait, watching the v2 consultation outcomes is reasonable. If you can't, submit now — validated targets under the current standard remain valid through their target year.
Where Formist replaces the manual version
Most of what's above — inventory calculation, Scope 3 screening, pathway math, drafting the submission form, cross-checking that your supplier engagement target covers ≥67% of relevant Scope 3 — is mechanical once the scope is set. Formist is an AI-powered compliance platform built by WeCarbon that behaves like a colleague who has read the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard more carefully than most consultants. You upload your energy bills, procurement data, and fleet records; the Formist AI agent builds the base year inventory, runs the ACA math against the target year you choose, drafts both the near-term and long-term target statements, and produces the Target Submission Form pre-populated with source-document citations for every number.
What it doesn't do: make the ambition call for you. Whether you go 42% or 50%, supplier engagement or absolute, 2033 or 2035 — those are still judgment decisions that sit with your sustainability lead and your board. Formist gives you a defensible draft of everything around those decisions so the decisions are the only things left to make.
For a 300-person manufacturer like Northline, the difference between "three months of consulting engagement to build the submission" and "two afternoons in Formist plus a board sign-off meeting" is not marginal. It's whether the target gets submitted this year or gets pushed to next year, again.
Formist is built by WeCarbon, a climate-tech company with offices in Shanghai, Paris, and Dubai. It supports SBTi, CBAM, GHG Protocol, CSRD/ESRS, EU Taxonomy, CDP, ISSB, and 15+ other sustainability frameworks.