SBTi Validation

SBTi Services validates targets against SBTi criteria, while its service excludes choosing the applicant’s target-setting method or calculating its emission factors service description.

A company can therefore have a well-organised submission without yet having an approved target, and should distinguish preparation from the official decision when discussing sustainability reporting standards with customers.

The existing Corporate Net-Zero Standard guide explains the standard itself, while this guide follows the evidence and decisions that move a particular application through review.

Registration determines the organisation type and captures entity information, so an existing target holder should not assume its previous dashboard entry replaces the current registration process registration procedure.

The SME route has no commitment stage and its eligibility is not established merely by calling the business small questions 2 and 6.

Keep a dated route memo with the ownership chart and financial evidence actually used, especially if a subsidiary’s name differs from the entity that owns the inventory.

As at 26 October 2026, the standards page directs companies setting targets in 2026 to Corporate Net-Zero Standard V1.3.1 current resource selection.

The published V2.0 validation procedures describe a future service basis and should not be pasted into a current V1.3.1 application checklist scope and applicability.

A practical document index lists each criterion version beside the workbook that implements it, so a new template cannot silently change a board-approved calculation.

The current corporate near-term criteria and net-zero standard supply the target-setting rules, rather than the fact that the portal accepts a numeric field corporate criteria net-zero standard.

For an original fictional example, Bellwether Components submits an inventory containing a recently purchased factory but leaves that factory out of its target workbook, and the team holds submission until the two populations reconcile.

The accepted record is a factory-level bridge with a reason and reviewer for every adjustment, while the rejected record is an unexplained final total copied from a presentation.

The corporate schedule separates assessment, evaluation and decision stages, including the exchange of clarifications during review validation stages.

Bellwether assigns its factory-boundary query to the inventory owner and records the affected target text alongside the corrected workbook, preventing a second respondent from answering with the superseded total.

An answer register should distinguish a clarification that changes no figures from an amendment that requires related coverage, wording and internal approval to be checked again.

Service Offerings V6.1 gives corporate results within 40 business days from service start, whereas the corporate schedule describes 30 business days plus a possible further stage, so these are attributed planning references rather than one harmonised promise service timing schedule.

The general target-setting page also presents an overall journey, which should not be treated as the same clock as a contracted validation stage target-setting process.

Bellwether plans an internal contingency for missing evidence and keeps its marketing launch provisional until the result and approved wording are available.

Published Service Offerings V6.1 sets out route and service tiers, and the assigned registration classification matters more than a price quoted for a different business service and tier tables.

Do not assume a refund, free resubmission, fixed number of query rounds or a consultant’s fee includes the owner’s validation charge when those terms have not been confirmed.

A comparison of sustainability consultancy proposals should identify preparation deliverables separately from the official fee and the decision that only SBTi Services can issue.

SBTi’s Commitment and Target Statuses document distinguishes the status labels used in its public system, so a commitment or submitted application is not a validated target status definitions.

The October validation SOP says approved targets must be announced within six months of the decision, making publication a controlled post-decision action rather than a task to leave indefinitely section 7.1.7.

Bellwether rejects a draft customer email saying its whole business is certified and substitutes wording referring only to its approved targets and the relevant validation scope.

The owner’s Readiness Assessment Service is described as an evidence-based assessment to help existing target holders understand readiness for V2.0, rather than an advance validation decision service scope.

The public service process itself separates developing targets, submitting them and having them validated step-by-step process.

When buying sustainability software, ask whether an export can preserve versions, calculations and source references, rather than treating a product’s readiness score as an official outcome.

The validation statement identifies the customer, validation scope, standard or guidance, decision and date, which makes it the anchor for the archive validation statement.

Bellwether keeps the superseded factory calculation as history but marks it clearly as unsubmitted working material, so a future reviewer cannot confuse it with the accepted version.

An exported index is more useful than a shared folder with only file names because it records the reason for each material change and the person authorised to release the result.

Validation is an important milestone in the owner’s target-setting journey, while implementation and disclosure remain part of what the company must organise after that milestone implementing targets.

Bellwether’s handover pairs its approved target with an operating plan and a named factory-data owner, instead of handing the decision statement to marketing and closing the project.

For broader reporting, connect the target record to the organisation’s Scope 3 reporting and publication controls while keeping each framework’s requirements separate.

These are editorial procurement tests rather than additional SBTi criteria, and their purpose is to expose practical weaknesses before an application depends on them.

Bellwether rejects a demonstration that changes a target percentage without preserving the earlier calculation, even though the new chart looks cleaner.

A useful specification for a software request for proposal asks for the retained evidence and export format rather than an unsupported promise of guaranteed validation.

The V2.0 owner material and separate validation procedures make version control a real application question, not simply a document-formatting preference V2.0 resources V2 validation basis.

Bellwether’s finance lead releases the package only after the factory bridge, amended target wording and response-owner rota are complete, while recognising that this internal release does not predict the validator’s decision.