Target setting process questions
Here we provide answers to common technical questions that companies have as they are going through the target-setting process.
Assess your impacts on nature
In Step 1, you identify which of your company’s activities and environmental pressures are material for setting science-based targets for nature. You assess these pressures and the state of nature in the locations where you operate and source from, and your dependencies on nature. This assessment provides the information that is used in Step 2 to prioritize where to set targets.
You can choose to take a comprehensive scope or use the accelerated pathways option to focus on a selection of material business units, environmental realms (freshwater, land, or ocean), or value chain segments (direct operations or upstream). These pathways allow you to consider your business context and priorities, as well as readiness to take action across different business divisions.
Step 1: Assess is suitable for companies across sectors and levels of expertise and can support decision-making outside target setting and help prepare for voluntary disclosure and regulatory requirements.
"The SBTN process was the enabling work that made subsequent reporting and assessment frameworks significantly easier to address. We did SBTN first, which meant that when we came to do the TNFD LEAP assessment, we already had the analytical foundation in place. Where SBTN goes further is in providing detailed methodological and prescriptive guidance on how to calculate the baseline."
Why should I assess my company’s impacts on nature?
Your company’s economic activities can exert significant pressure on nature, for example, by transforming land, extracting resources, or releasing harmful emissions to the environment. These pressures may have substantially different impacts on nature. You should focus your target-setting efforts on those pressures that are determined to be material from a societal perspective, in other words, those that are in reality or potentially causing significant impacts on people and nature.
By following the Step 1 technical guidance, you will achieve two objectives. First, you will gain a broad understanding of which of your economic activities, and the environmental pressures they generate, are material enough to warrant setting science-based targets for nature. Second, you will collect the relevant operational and environmental data on these activities, which will be required to apply the methods outlined in subsequent steps. This helps focus your data gathering and target-setting efforts on the issues that are most important for nature. At the same time, this comprehensive overview of environmental data can also prove useful in supporting your sustainability initiatives and responsibilities beyond the context of science-based targets for nature.
After completing Step 1 you will have:
- Defined the scope of your assessment, taking a comprehensive approach or following the Accelerated pathways to focus on specific business units, environmental realms, and/or value chain segments.
- Identified which of your company’s activities and pressures on nature are material to set targets on.
- Defined your target boundaries by mapping your direct operations and/or upstream procurement to potential target-setting locations, depending on available traceability.
- Compiled data to quantify these pressures, the state of nature across your value chains, and your dependencies.
Step 1 is organized into two sub-steps
1a Materiality screening
Step 1a, the materiality screening, is a quick and high-level process where you identify whether your economic activities are material on eight pressure categories. To do so, you define your organizational boundary and identify which of your direct operations and upstream value chain activities may have material impacts on nature.
Resources such as SBTN’s Materiality Screening Tool and ENCORE ensure an efficient and high-level screening process across all pressure categories relevant for setting science-based targets.
1b Value chain assessment
In this assessment, you map your material value chain activities to potential target-setting locations. Using different tools, you assess the environmental pressures of your activities and those associated with your procurement of goods and materials, determine the state of nature in the target-setting locations, and identify relevant dependencies on ecosystem services. This assessment may take a comprehensive scope at the enterprise level or, following the guidance for accelerated pathways, focus on specific business units, defined in terms of geographies or other divisions within your organization, environmental realms, or value chain segments.
Did you know?
After completing Step 1, you can have your work independently validated.
Companies can have their materiality assessment (Step 1: Assess) independently validated by the Accountability Accelerator before moving on to subsequent steps in the target-setting process. This option helps companies turn assessment insights into a credible, public milestone on their nature journey.
Learn more about the Step 1 validation milestone.
Resources for Step 1: Assess