Science-Based Targets Have Tripled Since 2023. Where Does Your Company Stand?
More than 12,000 companies have now set or validated science-based climate targets. For mid-market companies that have not yet done so, the gap is no longer theoretical. It is visible to your customers, your buyers, and the investors who evaluate your largest commercial partners.
The Numbers That Executives Need to Understand
The Science Based Targets initiative published its April 2026 Trend Tracker report on April 9, and the growth figures it contains should register as a material business signal for any executive currently managing sustainability reporting obligations. [1]
The number of global companies with both near-term climate goals and net-zero targets increased 61% year over year in 2025. Companies with targets validated by SBTi, which confirms that corporate emissions reduction goals align with leading climate science, increased 40% over the same period. By the end of 2025, more than 12,000 companies had either validated science-based targets or formal commitments to set them. That total has more than tripled since 2023.
One trend within those figures is particularly consequential for mid-market companies. In 2023, 40% of companies counted in the SBTi database held a commitment but had not yet converted it to a validated target. By 2024 that share had dropped to 30%. By the end of 2025, only 21% of counted companies remained in commitment-only status. [1] The market is not expanding its ambitions while delaying its follow-through. It is converting at an accelerating rate.
The number of companies with SBTi-validated targets or commitments has more than tripled since 2023. Only 21% of those companies now hold a commitment without a validated target, down from 40% in 2023. The window between commitment and validation is closing across the market. [1]
12,000+ | 61% | 39% |
companies globally had SBTi-validated targets or commitments by end of 2025, more than tripling the number recorded in 2023. [1] | year-over-year increase in companies with both near-term climate goals and net-zero targets in 2025, according to the SBTi April 2026 Trend Tracker. [1] | of S&P 500 listed companies have set science-based climate targets. For Forbes Global 2000 companies, that figure stands at 33%. [1] |
What Science-Based Targets Are and Why Validation Matters
A science-based target is an emissions reduction goal aligned with the level of decarbonization that climate science requires to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The Science Based Targets initiative is the independent standard-setting organization that validates whether a company's targets meet that standard.
Validation matters for a specific commercial reason. It is not sufficient for a company to state that it intends to reduce its emissions. Customers, investors, lenders, and procurement platforms are evaluating whether a company's climate commitments have been independently confirmed as credible. An unvalidated commitment and a validated SBTi target are categorically different in the markets where this distinction is being applied.
The GHG Protocol, the methodology framework that underpins emissions measurement across Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3, provides the accounting standard that SBTi validation draws on. A company cannot set a credible science-based target without first completing a structured GHG inventory that establishes its emissions baseline across all three scopes. The target is the output of that measurement process. The validated target is the commercially recognized signal of that process having been completed to the required standard. [2]
SBTi CEO David Kennedy stated in the April 2026 release that setting science-based targets is a key lever for companies to manage transition risk and strengthen business resilience, and that despite political headwinds, increasing numbers of companies in every region are doing exactly that. [1] That framing reflects a practical reality that goes beyond sustainability reporting. Companies with validated targets are positioning themselves as credible partners in commercial relationships where climate performance is now a sourcing criterion.
How Buyer Requirements Are Accelerating Supplier Target Setting
The growth in science-based target adoption is not occurring in isolation from commercial pressure. It is being driven, in significant part, by the requirements that large enterprise buyers are placing on their supply chains.
Amazon, which contracted 10.22 gigawatts of clean energy in 2025 to address its own Scope 2 footprint, has simultaneously formalized requirements for key suppliers to provide documented decarbonization plans aligned with climate science. The company has stated explicitly that it will prioritize suppliers that are positioned to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions when making sourcing decisions. [3] The framework Amazon is using to evaluate supplier decarbonization plans is built on SBTi-compatible methodology.
This is not unique to Amazon. The 2026 Sustainable Procurement Barometer produced by EcoVadis and Accenture found that 98% of surveyed companies have now started embedding ESG data into procurement processes. Buyers operating under CSRD, the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, are required to report on supply chain sustainability performance, which in practice means collecting verifiable emissions data and decarbonization commitments from their vendors. [4]
The consequence for mid-market suppliers is direct. When a buyer with a science-based net-zero target evaluates its supply chain, it is looking for suppliers whose own commitments are credible and independently validated. A supplier without a science-based target represents an unmanaged Scope 3 emissions risk in that buyer's sustainability reporting. That exposure has commercial implications that are increasingly being acted upon through procurement decisions.
Setting science-based targets is a key lever for companies to manage transition risk and strengthen business resilience. Despite political headwinds, increasing numbers of companies in every region are setting science-based targets. SBTi CEO David Kennedy, April 2026. [1]
The Sectors Where Growth Is Accelerating Fastest
The SBTi April 2026 Trend Tracker provides sector-level data that is directly relevant for mid-market companies assessing where they stand relative to peers. The industrials sector continues to hold the largest total number of validated company targets. However, growth was fastest in 2025 in three other sectors.
Health care companies with SBTi-validated targets increased 76%, growing from 262 to 460 companies. Information technology companies with validated targets grew 48%, from 696 to 1,030. The materials sector saw 43% growth in validated targets, from 1,062 to 1,518 companies. [1] These are not the largest absolute numbers in the SBTi database, but the growth rates indicate that sector-level adoption pressure is building rapidly across industries that had previously lagged the market.
For a mid-market company in any of these sectors, the competitive context has shifted materially. Two years ago, a company without a science-based target was in the majority in most mid-market segments. Today, it is increasingly in the minority among the peers, customers, and commercial partners that define the competitive environment for its customer relationships.
The geographic picture reinforces this conclusion. Europe remains the region with the most companies holding validated targets. However, Asia is now growing faster than any other region, and the report notes continued target-setting growth across all major global markets. [1] For companies with international operations or customer relationships, the expectation of science-based target validation is no longer confined to a single regulatory jurisdiction.
The Relationship Between Target Setting and Emissions Measurement
One of the most common misconceptions among mid-market executives approaching science-based targets for the first time is that target setting is the starting point. It is not. Target setting is the output of a completed emissions measurement process.
Before a company can set a science-based near-term target, it must have a documented Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions inventory built on GHG Protocol methodology. Before it can set a science-based net-zero target, it must have identified and quantified the Scope 3 categories material to its value chain. The targets express a credible trajectory for reducing those measured emissions. They cannot be constructed without the underlying data.
This sequencing has a practical implication for how companies should prioritize their work.
A company that sets an aspirational climate commitment without completing the measurement work first cannot convert that commitment to a validated SBTi target. It also cannot produce the supplier sustainability disclosure that a customer conducting a procurement review will require, because the disclosure depends on the same underlying inventory.
The most efficient path for a mid-market company without an internal sustainability team is to complete the GHG inventory, use that inventory as the basis for SBTi target setting, and then produce the sustainability disclosures, whether for EcoVadis, CDP, California SB 253, or a direct customer request, from the same documented foundation. These are not separate workstreams requiring separate expertise. They are sequential steps in a single integrated program.
A company cannot set a credible science-based target without first completing a structured GHG inventory across Scope 1, 2, and 3. The target is the output of that measurement process. The validated target is the commercially recognized signal that the process has been completed to the required standard.
What the Commitment-to-Validation Trend Means Practically
The declining share of companies holding commitments without validated targets reflects a market that is moving past the announcement phase and into the execution phase. In 2023, companies could credibly signal climate ambition by making a public commitment to set targets. By 2026, that signal has lost much of its commercial value because buyers, investors, and procurement platforms are now distinguishing between commitments and validated targets.
The SBTi validation process requires a company to submit its GHG inventory, its proposed targets, and supporting documentation for independent review. SBTi evaluates whether the targets are consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius pathway, whether the coverage is sufficiently comprehensive across scopes and emissions categories, and whether the methodology used to calculate the baseline is robust. [5]
Companies that attempt the validation process without having completed a rigorous inventory, or without understanding the specific coverage and methodology requirements SBTi applies, frequently encounter delays, revision requests, or submission outcomes that require additional documentation work. Preparing a submission that passes validation on the first or second cycle requires the same discipline as preparing any regulatory disclosure: a clear methodology, documented data sources, and complete coverage of the required emissions categories.
For mid-market companies assessing whether to begin this process, the relevant question is not whether science-based targets will eventually be required in their commercial environment. The trajectory of the data makes that answer apparent. The relevant question is how much lead time remains before the absence of a validated target creates a visible and consequential gap in their commercial relationships.
Build the Foundation Your Science-Based Targets Require
EcoVantage Support provides carbon emissions management and sustainability reporting services for mid-market companies managing SBTi target setting, GHG inventory completion, and parallel sustainability disclosure obligations. Our work covers Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions inventory using GHG Protocol methodology, science-based target development and SBTi submission preparation, and coordination with EcoVadis questionnaire management, CDP supplier response preparation, and California SB 253 climate disclosure.
For companies that need to close the gap between a stated climate commitment and a validated science-based target, or that are completing their first GHG inventory as the foundation for both target setting and supplier disclosure, contact us at:
Or visit ecovantagesupport.com to review our full range of ESG reporting and carbon emissions management services.
References
[1] Johnson, L. (2026, April 9). Companies with net-zero and near-term climate goals up 61% in 2025: SBTi. ESG Dive. https://www.esgdive.com/news/companies-with-net-zero-and-near-term-climate-goals-up-61-in-2025-sbti/817093/
[2] GHG Protocol. (2015). Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard. World Resources Institute. https://ghgprotocol.org/scope-3-standard
[3] ESG Today. (2024, July 12). Amazon to Require Key Suppliers to Provide Decarbonization Plans. ESG Today. https://www.esgtoday.com/amazon-to-require-key-suppliers-to-provide-decarbonization-plans/
[4] EcoVadis and Accenture. (2026). 2026 Sustainable Procurement Barometer. EcoVadis. https://ecovadis.com/insights/barometer/
[5] Science Based Targets initiative. (2023). SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard. SBTi. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/net-zero
[6] Science Based Targets initiative. (2026, April). SBTi Trend Tracker April 2026. SBTi. https://sciencebasedtargets.org/reports/sbti-trend-tracker-april-2026
[7] Mirza, Z. (2026, January 23). Companies with validated science-based climate targets hit 10,000: SBTi. ESG Dive. https://www.esgdive.com/news/companies-with-validated-science-based-climate-targets-hit-10000-sbti/810376/
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