The review period for the first draft of the net-zero target-setting framework being developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) officially ends today, Sept. 9.
The clock for the 12-week initial consultation period began on June 17, providing ISO members — more than 170 national standards bodies — an opportunity to offer comments and suggest language changes. Now that the period is closed, ISO will review the feedback. If significant revisions are requested, an updated draft of the standard must be circulated before a final approval vote can take place.
ISO’s governance requires that two-thirds of the committees advising a new standard (or an update) and 75 percent of all voting ISO members approve of the language in a draft standard before it’s approved.
Those familiar with the process anticipate that the ISO net-zero standard won’t be considered for final approval until early 2027.
Changes suggested
ISO’s net-zero standard, officially known as the ISO 14060 Standard for Net-Zero Aligned Organizations, began life two years ago as loose guidelines suggested by nonprofits and companies including Amazon, FedEx, Google, Intel, Mars, McDonald’s and Meta.
The 91-page standard outlines the organizational processes required to become net zero; among other things, it mandates that companies publish a detailed roadmap of the steps they’ll take within two years of setting a net-zero target.
The transition plan requirement is likely to be a sticking point for companies skittish about sharing deep details about sensitive commercial and financial information, said Alexia Kelly, managing director of the carbon policy and markets initiative at High Tide Foundation and a member of the ISO net-zero technical advisory group.
“That needs to be addressed because I don’t think that most companies will be able to get approval to participate,” she said. “I feel frankly pretty torn because on the one hand the environmentalist in me likes a lot of the things in this standard but the former corporate sustainability executive is looking at this thing and saying, ‘I don’t see how they’re going to be able to sell this to the C-suite.’ ”
Aside from the transition plan requirement, Kelly questioned the ISO draft standard’s attempt to define its own criteria for environmental attribute certificates (EACs) rather than aligning with existing international standards. It’s also overly complicated and expensive for smaller companies, especially those in developing nations, she said.
“The standard needs to be significantly streamlined, clarified and simplified to be broadly adopted and used,” she wrote Sept. 2 in a LinkedIn post. “Right now, it’s only accessible to the largest, richest and most well-resourced companies.”
Another concern among those who have reviewed the draft is that it doesn’t set an end date for net-zero pledges.
“This may create a loophole for very large companies with global value chains to delay reaching net-zero emissions,” said researchers at think tank NewClimate Institute, which published recommended changes to the standard on Aug. 20.
Work by ISO and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol to unify their respective standards for corporate carbon accounting will also become a factor in the ISO net-zero standard’s future, the researchers wrote: “The transparency and comparability of target setting and implementation under the ISO 14060 Standard for Net-Zero Aligned Organizations will therefore also depend on the outcome of these revisions.”
