To support your organisation in signing up to the Make it Zero decarbonisation commitment we have prepared this artice.
Target Development Process
The diagram below provides an overview of the target development process and actions.

The following process can be followed to set a decarbonisation target.
Select a baseline year.
A baseline year needs to be established to track emissions performance against. As stated in the principles you should use a year with accurate data reflective of current operations for the baseline for both the near term and long-term targets, aligning to any applicable reporting requirements for baseline selection. Questions to consider when selecting the baseline year:
- Would it align best with your current reporting to use the calendar year of financial year?
- Does the most recent historic year have good quality data and is reflective of current operations? If so, it is likely to be the most suitable for use. If not the most recent year that has good data and reflects operations should be considered.
- Are there any regulatory requirements (such as SBTi or CSRD) you have to comply with which limit how historic a baseline year can be used? Or national conventions that would prefer a more historic year to be used?
Calculate your companies emissions.
Once you have selected the baseline year you will need to calculate the annual emissions for this year. This can be done using the following method.
- Using your company boundary as used for financial accounting list your company areas and then map out all activities against the three emission scopes.

- Quantify the amount / volume for each activity for the year (for example volume of fuel use, kWh of electricity, volume of water, tonnage of waste, number of sold products, volume of purchased goods, mileage of transport).
- Multiple the amount / volume for each activity by its associated emission factor. The summation of these for all areas will be the annual emissions for the year.
Guidance is available from the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and MAKE IT ZERO guide on scope 3 accounting. The calculation may be revised in future years where necessary as better data / calculation methods become available.
Set target boundaries.
Having calculated your emissions, you have quantified your emissions by scope and activity area. You can now set the boundary for your target, noting it must cover at least 95% of scope 1 & 2 and 67% of scope 3 emissions through the corporate target and supplier engagement target. If necessary, allowances can be made for SMEs companies in your supply chain, such as initially focusing targets on larger suppliers.
Questions to consider when setting the target boundary include:
- Which of the scope 1 & 2 areas are negligible, hard to obtain data for or have limited decarbonisation actions that could be considered for exclusion from the target?
- Which of the scope 3 areas are largest in terms of emissions? Which have the greatest potential for decarbonisation? These could be considered for inclusion within the 67% that must be covered by the target.
- What percentage of suppliers can feasibly be engaged? What percentage of scope 3 emissions does this account for?
Choose a target year.
For the near term targets an end date of 2035 is required and for the longer term targets an end date of 2050. When selecting a target end date you may wish to consider:
- What timeframe would your organisation need to implement decarbonisation measures?
- Are there any key business events you may wis to align with?
- What targets have any of your competitors selected?
- Do any of your clients or stakeholders have expectations for your decarbonisation target?
- Are there any policies or regulations you wish to comply with?
Calculate your targets.
There are three key areas to consider when calculating your target: business as usual emissions, required reductions from the Paris Agreement, and what you can achieve from decarbonisations measures.
Business as usual emissions
The business as usual (BAU) emissions are how your baseline emissions would be expected to change between the baseline and target endpoint if no additional decarbonisations measures were taken. This should take into account internal factors such as business growth, operational changes and planned measures, as well as external factors such as decarbonisation of national electricity grids and public transport measures. By considering the impact of these factors on emissions you will obtain a clearer picture of what your emissions would be at the target end date with no additional actions, and so the remaining level of emissions reductions that are necessary.

Required reductions
The Paris agreement defined reduction trajectories to limit global temperature decreases, and as explained in the target principles your decarbonisation trajectory will ned to be on or below these. These are detailed in the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard and the SBTi Corporate near-term and long-term tools.
Decarbonisation measures
In order to assess what targets are feasible you should identify what decarbonisation measures you could implement and the emission reductions these could be expected to achieve. Information is key to establish a full list of measures and establish their savings as accurately as possible. As such this should be done consulting a wide range of stakeholders in your organisation. Looking at what others in the sector are doing can also provide useful sources of information.

Applying these emission reductions to the business as usual will show the emission reductions that could feasible be achieved by the target end date and enable you to set your decarbonisation targets.

This process is likely to be iterative, where having identified the measures and compared these to the required trajectories you potential review the target boundary or end date, and then potentially also adjust the decarbonisation measures to be included. Once satisfied you will be able to define the percentage reductions associated with your target.
Additional Resources
There are a range of additional resources that are useful for target setting. These include, but are too limited to, the following:
- MAKE IT ZERO Make it zero materials, including scope 3 strategy and road map https://www.edra-ghin.org/make-it-zero
- Ricardo net zero thought pieces https://www.ricardo.com/en/services/strategy-and-advisory/net-zero-and-decarbonisation
- Webinar series on developing a business strategy for net zero emissions https://www.ricardo.com/en/news-and-insights/events-and-webinars/developing-a-business-strategy-for-net-zero-emissions
- Webinar series on achieving net zero https://www.ricardo.com/en/news-and-insights/events-and-webinars/achieving-net-zero-webinar-series
- SBTi Corporate Net-Zero strategy and target setting tools https://sciencebasedtargets.org/resources/
- The GHG protocol corporate standard https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard
- The EU Corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) https://finance.ec.europa.eu/capital-markets-union-and-financial-markets/company-reporting-and-auditing/company-reporting/corporate-sustainability-reporting_en
The UK government conversion factors for company reporting of greenhouse gas emissions https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/government-conversion-factors-for-company-reporting
Sign up.
Use the MAKE IT ZERO target signatories page to sign-up and register your target. To do this you can complete the form below and we will review your targets and add you to our website as a signatory of the commitment.