Target setting for promotional FI's

SBTi commitments and submissions
1

Hello! I have a question regarding setting targets for promotional financial institutions (FI’s) e.g. banks that finance governmental organizations or organizations with a link to a government. Examples are financing municipalities, private foundations that execute legal tasks s.a. social housing or electricity grid operators that are private companies owned by the state. As the SBTi explicitly excludes governmental entities I was thus wondering if it is possible for promotional FI’s to set targets.
My specific questions are as follows:

  1. A large part of the CO2eq emissions of these client’s scope 1 & 2 emissions is due to real estate data, either commercial or residential real estate, can we set targets on their real estate related emissions?
    a. Can we use the real estate SBTi tool for setting targets for these emissions incl. the scope 3 tool?
  2. Is there a way to set targets for government organizations for which scope 1&2 emissions are not largely dependent on real estate emissions?
  3. Can we set engagement targets for governmental organizations that strive towards them setting science based targets even though they are excluded from SBTi accreditation?
  4. Additionally, we are still in the process of improving our CO2e data and refine our calculation methods almost yearly. If our targets are approved can we update the targets on a yearly basis using the same approach and methods/tools without revising our intial SBTi approved targets ? We always revise the base year information as well when we improve our CO2e data to reflect the most up to date and accurate methods of calculating emissions.

Many thanks in advance for your response.

2

Please refer to this thread for a related question. Although the SBTi does not currently validate targets for governments or public sector institutions, government ownership does not necessarily mean that an entity is a public sector institution.

Depending on its portfolio, it could then be possible for the FI to set targets (e.g., engagement targets if the portfolio companies are not public sector institutions). On real estate, there is currently a call for companies and FIs to pilot test the Buildings Sector Guidance.

Improving data is encouraged and it is recommended to then review if targets need to be adjusted accordingly. The minimum requirement, however, would be for targets to be revalidated at least every five years.