Tend your own carbon

Wield your influence for the emissions reductions you can't deliver alone.

Focused, near-term net-zero targets can drive investment into necessary climate technologies as they progress through the valley of death between early-stage development and commercialization. Publicly acknowledging what longer-term net-zero targets depend on can focus corporate political power on the systemic changes the economy-wide climate transition requires. Companies willing to commit capital towards achieving both targets deserve recognition, not criticism, for their efforts.

Recognize that you can’t achieve net zero alone

Corporate net zero has always been conditional on broader, systemic change. Recently, the corporate standards ecosystem has begun to acknowledge this reality, and even the SBTi's 2026-2030 strategy has moved in this direction. Their updated framework sets forth that targets are set on a best-efforts basis amid uncertainty and dependency, particularly for Scope 3 emissions, and that companies should be transparent about where barriers to implementation remain. 

As Robert Höglund argued in A New Lens on Corporate Net Zero, corporate net-zero targets should be recognized as two separate commitments: a near-term target covering emissions within corporate control, and a conditional target covering emissions that depend on changes beyond corporate control. The “conditional” framing exists to make this distinction visible: act on what you can, and work to change the conditions that block the rest. Steel companies that cannot switch to green hydrogen without a carbon price high enough to level competition have a legitimate barrier, but they must publicly acknowledge this barrier and advocate for governments to implement measures to enable their decarbonization. 

Achieving a net-zero target requires spending money, changing operations, and pushing for crucial but absent policies. Feasibility and affordability are real constraints, but they should not be used as blanket justifications for inaction, lest the net-zero targets be rendered meaningless. Companies that face structural barriers between their targets and what they can deliver should explain what the barriers are, state what they are doing to address them, and set targets that align with net-zero pathways. 

Set a near-term target to reduce and remove emissions you control

As shown in Milkywire’s recent whitepaper Operational Net Zero, more than 150 companies with near-term net-zero targets for 2030 or earlier have already limited their targets to exclude emissions beyond operational control. For emissions within a company's operational control, the implementation playbook is straightforward: reduce emissions through electrification, renewable energy procurement, efficiency, and operational changes, then neutralize remaining emissions with high-quality, durable carbon removal. We call this operational net zero, covering Scope 1, Scope 2, and controllable Scope 3 categories like business travel.

Setting a near-term target is especially impactful today - 2050 targets don’t easily generate budget line items in 2026, but a 2030 commitment increases the urgency for a company to quantify its residual emissions and allocate capital now. Near-term targets can provide much-needed support to burgeoning climate technologies, like durable carbon removal. 

We know carbon removal is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, yet today's market for carbon removal doesn’t measure up to its importance. Whereas SAF and EVs have regulatory mandates and market forces pulling investment their way, through CORSIA, FuelEU Maritime, and consumer demand, carbon removal suffers from a tragedy of the commons, has no equivalent mandates, and will only scale if someone is willing to pay for it in the short-term. The few companies procuring durable removal today are pioneers, building the market we will need to bring temperatures down from their peak. 

Say what your conditional target depends on, and fight for it

For emissions outside a company's direct control (for many companies this represents the majority of their total emissions) a different approach is needed. Explicitly acknowledging the conditions you need in order to reach net zero clarifies what it requires. Companies that state their targets depend on grid decarbonization in specific markets, on carbon pricing, or on permitting reform are creating pressure on governments and industry coalitions to act. And they are creating obligations for themselves: if your target depends on a policy change, you should be spending money and political capital to support that policy change.

If your net-zero target depends on carbon pricing, and your trade association lobbies against carbon pricing, then you are not making a climate commitment. That is just a promise you have no intention of keeping.

Reducing emissions at the pace and scale required for economy-wide net zero is a coordination problem. No company can decarbonize its supply chain alone and no government will build the policy infrastructure for a net-zero economy without clear signals from the private sector about what is needed and where the barriers are. Open communication about conditional targets enables that coordination. 

When companies in the same sector publicly identify the same policy dependencies, it becomes much harder for governments to ignore those gaps, and much easier for industry coalitions to form around shared solutions. Silence about what targets depend on, or the difficulties a company faces in reaching net zero, leaves companies isolated in their attempts to push for change and misinforms consumers who perceive all targets as equally achievable. 

It may seem counterintuitive, but labeling emissions as conditional raises the bar for corporate climate responsibility, by obligating that companies advocate for policies in a manner proportional to a company's dependency on systemic change. When corporate political influence is directed at the specific barriers a company's own targets depend on, rather than kept quiet or contradicted by trade association lobbying, it can catalyze the coordinated action that the climate transition requires. 

Where public scrutiny belongs

Corporate investment is the crucial middle step in the lifecycle of many climate technologies. Governments rarely subsidize technologies to cost competitiveness until the private sector has demonstrated that they work and that demand exists. 

The companies setting internal carbon prices, signing multi-year carbon removal offtake agreements, and publicly disclosing their conditional targets are doing the difficult, expensive work of building markets that the rest of the economy will eventually need. Consumers and market watch-dogs should be celebrating that leadership, not looking to play whack-a-mole to knock back any attempt at demonstrating corporate climate leadership. 

Scrutiny should be directed at the companies sitting on the sidelines: the ones with vague net-zero targets and no procurement pipeline, the ones whose trade associations fund opposition to the climate policies on which their own targets depend, and the ones using complexity and cost as excuses to defer action indefinitely. 

Corporates should tend their own carbon in the near-term and use their platform and political influence to enable comprehensive net zero in the longer-term. The companies willing to do both are building the climate transition; consumers should be standing behind them.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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