Corporate climate action keeps evolving. A foundation era built the vocabulary and the institutions. An ambition era, opened by the Paris Agreement in 2015, made net-zero universal and catalysed pledges. The phase now underway is a phase of accountability: quieter, more rigorous, and built on evidence.
SBTi's Corporate Net-Zero Standard Version 2.0, published on 11 June 2026, is written for accountability and pragmatism. The companies that do well in this new phase are the ones whose ambition rests on solid data: their pledge matches their plan, and their plan has leadership and capital behind it.
For companies that treated net-zero as a 2050 headline, V2 shifts the focus. For those already doing the operational work, it reads as recognition: credible net-zero is near-term delivery, backed by data that tracks and communicates progress on decarbonisation.
The Corporate Net-Zero Standard has been in place since 2021, and this is its first full revision. By SBTi's own count, 42% of the sections are entirely new and the rest have been modified or expanded, a rebuild so substantial that SBTi calls a criterion-by-criterion mapping from the old version unfeasible.
The previous model was: commit, set a near-term and a long-term target, have them validated, and work towards net-.
V2 reframes net-zero as an ongoing, best-efforts framework. The foundation becomes rolling five-year targets. A company sets them, acts, is assessed at cycle end, then sets the next round, and weaker progress in one cycle forces steeper cuts in the next. The long-term and overarching net-zero targets that anchored the old model become largely optional for all companies.
Two shifts reinforce this. Governance moves up: the standard requires sign-off from the highest level of governance and a transition plan from every company, putting net-zero ownership closer to the board and CFO. Assurance is formalised into target validation at the start of a cycle and an assessment at its close, making validation a recurring discipline.
V2 changes the differentiated responsibility approach for companies. The old SME route is replaced by two formal groups, Category A and Category B companies, that set out how much of the Standard applies to each.
Category A covers large companies everywhere, plus medium-sized companies in high-income countries. Category B covers small companies and medium-sized companies in lower-income countries.
Judged on turnover, headcount, or emissions, most established companies fall into Category A and carry the full weight of the new requirements. Companies should confirm their category early: it is fixed for each five-year cycle once registered.
The category implication is significant. Category B carries a lighter load: disclosure of the transition plan, assurance of base-year data, and Scope 3 target-setting are all optional. The transition plan itself is still required of every company.
The previous standard set one target covering Scope 1 and Scope 2 together. V2 separates them: every company sets a distinct Scope 1 and Scope 2 target, each covering 100% of emissions. Direct operational emissions reductions become harder to achieve with this update.
Scope 1 gains flexibility for heavy industry. Beyond absolute reduction, companies can use an emissions-intensity method tied to sector pathways, or an asset-transition method for long-lived capital: run existing assets efficiently and replace them with low-carbon alternatives against milestones or a carbon budget. SBTi looks for the emissions outcome; detailed investment plans can stay confidential.
Scope 2 now stands on its own. V2 requires a separate Scope 2 target covering 100% of purchased electricity, heat, steam, and cooling. The target is set and measured on the physical, location-based inventory, meaning the emissions of the grid that a company draws from. Procurement contracts and certificates still count, but they are accounted for and reported separately as implementation, rather than lowering the inventory the target is measured against.
Companies set their Scope 2 target in one of two ways:
a low-carbon electricity alignment target, which raises the share of low-carbon electricity used, contracted, or matched on a path towards 100%, or
an absolute emissions reduction target.
"Low-carbon" is broader than the old "renewable", and now includes nuclear and electricity generated with carbon capture and storage.
Long-term Scope 2 targets are optional. Two differentiated requirements: Category A firms submit projected electricity consumption over the target period, and any Category A company expecting average annual electricity demand growth above 20% across the cycle must set an absolute emissions target, not only an alignment target.
Measurement quality is key for scope 2. FairPrice Group, Singapore's largest retailer, worked with Terrascope to unify Scope 1 refrigerant and Scope 2 electricity data store by store across hundreds of locations, replacing months of manual reconciliation with automated, store-level tracking. Year-on-year change was then broken into the actions behind it: refrigerant conversions, maintenance improvements, and portfolio changes, so the team could see which moves worked and where to invest next.
The previous standard required a Scope 3 target where Scope 3 exceeded 40% of total emissions, covering 67% near-term and 90% long-term. V2 swaps the fixed percentages for a significance test: companies address every Scope 3 category worth 5% or more of categories 1 to 14, and may set aside named categories they cannot influence, as long as the exclusion is reported and justified publicly. Near-term Scope 3 targets apply to Category A, and are optional for Category B.
The methods broaden as well. Beyond emissions reduction, companies can set alignment targets, the share of suppliers or customers that are themselves in transition or net-zero aligned, plus new volume, product-use, and product-end-of-life methods. This moves procurement and commercial teams to the centre of Scope 3, where the levers sit.
The trade is more judgement for less box-ticking: effort concentrates on emissions that are material and within a company's influence, with a public audit trail of what was set aside and why.
For Category A, V2 requires limited assurance of the base-year inventory and target-setting metrics before validation, and requires assurance for the end-of-cycle assessment too. Assurance is recommended for Category B. Emissions data now has to satisfy an external auditor before SBTi validates a target, and again at each cycle's close. Reporting becomes recurring as well: expanded annual disclosures covering both the actions taken and the barriers hit.
For companies with mature Scope 1 and 2 data, this is manageable. For those whose Scope 3 figures rest on spend-based estimates and patchy supplier data, it is a heavy lift with a long lead time. Building an assurance-ready data foundation is the first job, because it gates everything else.
The shift to the new Corporate Net-Zero Standard is phased, and for a Category A company the right moves depend on where you sit in your current target cycle. The fixed dates:
Q1 2027: the V2 validation portal opens. From here you can register and submit targets under V2.
End of 2027, with final submissions into early 2028 (to 31 January 2028): the window in which companies can keep setting targets under the current rules (CNZS V1.3.1 and Near-Term Criteria V5.3) closes.
From 2028: companies that already hold 2030 targets should set their next cycle, 2030 to 2035, under V2, leaving enough lead time to implement.
What that means in practice:
If you already hold validated near-term targets (say, to 2030), those targets stand. Your job is preparation: through 2026 and 2027, get base-year data and metrics to limited-assurance standard, build the transition plan, and brief the board, then set your 2030 to 2035 cycle under V2 from 2028.
If your targets expire soon, or you have yet to set targets, you face a choice: set a target under the familiar Version 1 rules before the window closes, or move straight to V2 from Q1 2027. Going to V2 now avoids setting a target you re-tool within a couple of years.
What the decision depends on:
Your current target vintage. A recently validated 2030 target buys time; an expiring or absent target forces a near-term choice.
Data and assurance readiness. V2 requires limited assurance of your base-year inventory and target metrics. If that is not yet in place, start now.
V2 makes net-zero a continuous, governed, audited discipline anchored in near-term delivery. For large companies that raises the bar, and rewards the ones whose ambition is matched by their data: audit-ready Scope 1 and 2 emissions numbers, a Scope 3 picture granular enough to target by significance, and a five-year cycle they can run as routine.
That is what V2 asks for: targets a company can stand behind, evidenced by data it can prove, refreshed every cycle. Terrascope is built to deliver it, with measurement that stands up to assurance, Scope 3 detail at category and supplier level, and the tracking to manage rolling targets over time.
Every Terrascope customer taken through external assurance and SBTi validation under V1 has passed - from tomato processor Kagome, to hospitality provider Mandai and food distributor Princes. V2 goes further. That's where Terrascope helps.
Getting the base-year inventory to assurance standard
V2 makes limited assurance of the base-year inventory and target metrics mandatory for Category A before validation, and assurers want traceability: every figure tied to its source data and emission factor. Terrascope provides full data lineage and emissions factor locking that maps each activity to the same emission factor year on year, while updating to the latest versions.
Targeting Scope 3 by significance, not spend
Scope 3 targets change under V2: fixed coverage is replaced by a 5% significance test with publicly justified exclusions. Knowing which categories clear 5%, and defending an exclusion, needs category- and supplier-level data where a spend-based average is limited. Companies measure Scope 3 with granularity using Terrascope, collecting primary data through supplier engagement and blending supplier-specific emissions factors with industry databases.
FLAG and land-sector data
Land emissions and removals need activity-level data and LSR Standard-aligned accounting. Terrascope is an end-to-end solution for FLAG.
Running net-zero as a rolling cycle
V2 introduces five-year cycles, annual disclosure of actions and barriers, and an end-of-cycle assessment. Terrascope users have a continuous, comparable dataset with year-on-year change broken into its drivers.
Connecting a target to a credible plan
V2 expects targets to come with reasonable implementation plans, where the "we committed before we knew how" anxiety lives. Terrascope analytics size reduction opportunities by impact, supplier, business unit, and enable users to run reduction scenarios, turning a measured inventory into a prioritised decarbonisation pathway. It informs the plan; the strategic and capital calls stay yours.