This is a compass that risks losing its north. Last week, the board of directors of the SBTi (Science based targets initiative), a certification committee founded by different organizations such as the WWF, the UN Global Compact and the World Resources Institute, caused a stir. This recognized organization, which validates the relevance and credibility of companies’ decarbonization strategies, has announced its intention to integrate the use of carbon credits into the targeted CO2 emissions reductions.
A deviation, according to many climate experts. Because since 2015, this committee has established itself as the reference label. Today more than 4,000 companies have had their strategies approved, including a certain number of French giants such as EDF, Publicis, Accor, and Saint-Gobain. It is also a way for these companies to give assurances of good faith to investors and the general public on their climate commitments.
Risk of greenwashing
Until now, SBTi claimed that companies could not use carbon credits to offset their “scope 3” emissions, those coming from their supply chains and the use of their products by their customers. This change in method would therefore allow companies whose balance sheet still includes a significant portion of residual emissions to cancel them by financing reforestation or CO2 capture projects.
It is this controversial practice that has sparked an uproar among climate experts, and even the organization’s employees, who accuse the board of directors of having made this decision without consultation. “This is extremely problematic from a scientific point of view given the breadth of academic literature demonstrating the lack of robustness of the voluntary compensation market,” explained on LinkedIn a specialist on the subject, César Dugast from the Carbone 4 firm. Carbon credits are criticized because they allow emissions to be offset, without necessarily seeking to reduce them. Deemed unverifiable and subject to the risk of double counting, these credits – which supply a voluntary market – are also singled out for their lack of scientific reliability.
Many therefore fear seeing the reputation of the organization tainted by greenwashing. “We are very surprised by this decision which is contrary to their own doctrine,” says Fabrice Bonnifet, president of the College of Directors of Sustainable Development, which has 350 members, among the largest French companies. He thus denounces what he considers to be a “coup de force” of the main support of the organization, the Bezos Earth Fund, the philanthropic fund of the boss of Amazon. According to THE Financial Timeshe would have coordinated a meeting with the board of directors of the SBTi, during which the use of the compensation would have been discussed.
No change… before July?
This turnaround therefore also testifies to a form of tension on the part of the economic actors furthest behind in their transition promises. “Certain American companies realize that they do not have sufficiently credible trajectories to keep their commitments on time, so they are seeking to change the rules of the game,” laments Fabrice Bonnifet. A point of view shared by César Dugast for whom the SBTi has “visibly given in to the pressure of companies who have understood that a 90% reduction in their emissions by 2050 cannot take place without a radical transformation of their business models – something they don’t want to do at all.
Real scandal, or a storm in a teacup? A few days after these announcements, the SBTi published a statement online, saying “no changes” had been made to the organization’s current standards. According to Financial Times, a formal draft of rules on carbon offsetting could however be put on the table in July. At the risk of seeing a certain number of companies distance themselves from a framework that was until now authoritative.
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