Step 1. Assess
In this first step, your company determines which environmental impacts it most likely needs to address with targets, and which parts of the business are the highest priority to get started with first. It will give your company a sense of where to invest time and energy in the target-setting process. Regardless of sector, geographic location, or level of sustainability experience, nearly all companies should be able to complete this step and meet the required validation criteria to move forward with the target setting process.
Step 1a: Materiality Screening
Screen for the material pressures most likely to require target-setting, based on sector-level information.
Step 1b: Value Chain Assessment
Estimate your company’s contributions to key environmental pressures across its operations and value chains and estimate the state of nature in locations that your company operates or sources from, in order to inform decisions about which environmental impacts to set science-based targets on, for which parts of the business, and where in the value chain.
Technical guidance materials:
- Reader’s Guide to 1st Release (PDF)
- Step 1 Technical Guidance (PDF)
- Materiality Screening Tool (spreadsheet)
- High Impact Commodity List (spreadsheet)
- Data Needs (spreadsheet)
- Toolbox (spreadsheet)
