I would like to ask you something about the new booking system. A collegue of mine told me that all dates up to August 2022 have been reserved.
We have already completed our calculations for target setting of our client and we are planning to submit SBTi filled form in the first months of 2022.
Question a: Which is the procedure for booking? We book a date months (pre-booking) before and this date we upload the filles form or not?
Question b: In case all dates are closed up to 8/22. Are we obliged to update our calculations (already performed) by taking into account that from June 2022 target setting must be consistent with the scenario of 1.5 C?
Vasso, our team had the same question. We weren’t able to “reserve” a spot without making a submission and are in the process of finalizing our target language, so don’t have a submission form complete. Following this thread!
Can I please ask you to clarify, if you are asking about targets for financial institutions (FI) (as this forum is currently mainly supporting financial institutions) or if this is related to companies ex financials?
In case we are going to submit SBTs for our FI in early March and before the launching of SBTi’s new booking system for FI. I suppose that we shall use the ex financials booking system. Many users in this forum said that in the ex financials system the nearest available date would be in late July or August. So, if this is true and in case we would manage to find a date for validation in August for example. Should we perform again our calculations in order to be consistent with the 1.5 C scenario or is it possible to submit our almost done calculations (WB2C for S1+S2 and min 2C for S3)? Τhe former case would be hard for us since extra data, resources, time etc would be required. Is there any particular provision for FIs that have already completed target setting in order to avoid recalculations?
FIs will need to submit their SBTs using the FI booking system and not the companies (ex financials) booking system. We are aiming to make an announcement with further details on the former in the coming weeks.
Please note that submission forms will need to be completed and uploaded in order to book a slot. Also, the date of the booked slot is when the review of the target submission will begin, and not the date that target validation results will be delivered.
Thanks for your helpful replies above. I have a follow-up question regarding the waiting times for FIs in the new booking system.
Is it realistic to plan with ~6 weeks from submitting the FI targets in the booking system until receiving a validation decision? If not, how can I find out about waiting list times for financial institutions (ahead of submission)?
From the SBTi newsletter from 17 February I understand that FIs do not need to take note of the waiting list for the new booking system. Hence, I assume that we can immediately book a slot and the timeframes listed on the SBTi website apply:
Initial screening: ~1week
Contract: ~ few days
Validation: 30 days – if responses to technical queries are received within two business days
→ ~6weeks in total
Is this an accurate assumption? Or are there any changes that need to be considered?
The booking slots for FI target validations are separate from those of other companies so indeed you will not be subject to the same waiting list that currently exists for other companies. In comparison, the next available slot for FI target validations is in April at this particular point in time. You would be able to see the available slots after uploading a submission form in the booking system.
While the initial screening and contract steps should take the same amount of time as for other companies, we have not put a specific timeframe for the validation step for FI targets. So far it has similarly taken about a month from the booking date (if responses to queries are received within two business days) though it can potentially take two, depending on the number of rounds of questions and response times.
