Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0: the Scope 3 software checklist for the 2027 transition

The short answer: version 2.0 of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard replaces the single 67% Scope 3 coverage test with a category-by-category screen at 5%, and that change moves the burden from target modeling to inventory accuracy. Under the current rules you can hit one portfolio number several ways. Under V2.0 you have to know, defensibly, what every category in 1 to 14 is worth, because any one of them crossing 5% pulls a target obligation with it.

That is a software question before it is a strategy question. It was released on June 11, 2026, takes effect on February 1, 2027, and version 1 stays open for setting targets until the end of 2027, so most US companies have a real choice about which framework to submit under and roughly a year to make it. Below is what changes, how to tell which route is cheaper for your data, and the capability checklist worth taking into a vendor call.

What actually changes for Scope 3 in V2.0

Three things, and only the first gets much coverage. The coverage test changes, the exclusion rules change, and the permitted shape of a target changes. Taken together they favor companies with granular category data and penalize companies who reached 67% through one broad supplier engagement target.

The last row is the one that changes budgets. Category A covers large companies everywhere plus medium-sized companies in high-income countries, which means a medium-sized US company is Category A. For those companies Scope 3 target setting is not optional, a transition plan has to be disclosed when targets are validated (with flexibility of up to 15 months), and base year data needs assurance. If you have been treating assurance as a California-only problem, V2.0 puts it on the SBTi path too. The practical difference between the assurance levels is covered in our note on limited versus reasonable assurance.

The exclusion list is a genuine saving, if your data can support it

C14.2 lets you exclude specific things regardless of whether the category is significant, and two of them are worth real money to office-based US companies. Employee commuting, category 7, becomes an outright optional exclusion for the entire category. Category 3, fuel and energy-related activities, can be excluded where those emissions are already mitigated through energy reductions under your Scope 1 or 2 targets, unless a sector standard says otherwise.

The rest are conditional on influence rather than size: second-hand goods in categories 1 and 2, leased assets in category 8 where you hold no operational control and no contractual means to affect energy use, downstream transport in category 9 where you cannot influence fuel, route or mode, category 10 where processing steps are unknown or there is no contractual relationship with the processor, and franchises in category 14 operating independently under license.

Each of those is easier to claim and harder to leave undocumented. For every excluded activity C14.3 requires you to state the condition relied on, explain why it applies to your circumstances, quantify the excluded emissions both in absolute terms and as a percentage of categories 1 to 14, and describe what you intend to do about them. You cannot report an exclusion as a percentage without having calculated it, so the exclusion still costs you the estimate. Any tool that treats an excluded category as an empty field rather than a quantified, evidenced decision will fail you here.

Which route is cheaper depends on the shape of your footprint

There is no general answer, but there is a quick test. Run a screening estimate across all fifteen categories and count how many land above 5% of categories 1 to 14. If the answer is two or three, V2.0 is probably lighter for you than the current 67% rule, because you will be setting targets on a narrower set. If the answer is six or seven, the current rule is more forgiving, because you can reach 67% with whichever combination is easiest to model and leave the awkward categories alone.

Companies that lean on a single supplier engagement target should look closely before assuming continuity. Under C6 an engagement target counts toward the 67% and can carry most of the requirement. Under C15.2 the equivalent is an alignment target measured on the share of tier 1 suppliers or customers in transition or net-zero aligned, and where it is set on financial metrics you have to split it into separate upstream spend and downstream revenue targets. That is a different measurement obligation, and it needs supplier-level status tracking rather than a spend total.

Both routes have the same prerequisite, which is the point most vendor conversations skip: an accurate per-category number for all fifteen. The current rule needs it because excluded emissions stay in the denominator of the 67% test. The new rule needs it because the 5% screen runs per category. Neither lets you avoid the screening pass, and the full set of thresholds either way is on our reference for SBTi Scope 3 requirements.

What to ask a vendor

The useful questions are narrow and mostly about evidence rather than features. In rough order of how often the answer disqualifies a tool:

1. Can it produce a per-category figure for all fifteen from an accounts payable export alone? If the first inventory needs supplier questionnaires to produce any number at all, you will not have a screening estimate this year, and without one you cannot run either test.
2. Does every reported tonne stay linked to a source document? Assurance under V2.0 for Category A companies means a reviewer picking a line and asking where it came from. A number that traces to a spreadsheet cell rather than an invoice costs real fee hours.
3. Can it re-run a prior year on new data without proxying? The criteria forbid applying one reporting year's data to another, and V2.0 does not soften that. Tools that copy a category forward when data is missing quietly create a rejection.
4. Does it record exclusions as quantified decisions? C14.3 wants the amount, the percentage of categories 1 to 14, the condition relied on and the mitigation intent. Four fields, and most tools store none of them.
5. Does it track supplier-level alignment status? Only relevant if you expect to use C15.2, but if you do, spend totals are not enough.
6. Can it hold two boundaries at once? During the overlap you may want to model both the 67% test and the 5% screen before deciding which framework to submit under.

Question one is where most of the work sits, because it is really a bookkeeping problem. Producing fifteen categories from purchase records means classifying tens of thousands of invoice lines to a category and an emission factor, repeatably, with the confidence in each mapping recorded. Where a category needs physical units rather than dollars, the quantities already recorded against the goods you actually purchased and held are usually a better activity-data source than a spend total, and they sidestep the price artefact that makes spend-based figures fall whenever your procurement team negotiates a discount. The trade-offs between the two approaches are set out in spend-based versus activity-based emissions.

Should you submit under V1 now or wait for V2.0?

Submit now if your footprint is concentrated in a few large categories you can already quantify, if you want an approved target on record before your next customer questionnaire, or if you would rather not commission assurance this cycle. Version 1 stays open until the end of 2027, and a validated target under it remains valid.

Wait if employee commuting or fuel and energy-related activities are a meaningful share of your inventory and the new exclusions would remove them, if you are Category A and were going to need assurance anyway, or if your data is not good enough yet to prove that the categories you want to leave out are genuinely small. The SBTi also indicates that companies holding 2030 targets should set the 2030 to 2035 cycle under V2.0 from 2028, so for many the question is which framework carries the current cycle rather than which one they end up on.

Either way the validation fee is the smaller number. The full published price list runs from $1,250 for an SME to $49,800 for a large financial institution, and it is reproduced by tier and service on SBTi validation fees. What it does not cover is building the inventory the submission stands on, which is where the budget actually goes, and which is the same inventory a CDP response or a California filing needs. If a customer questionnaire is what brought you here rather than a target, start with Scope 3 emissions reporting requirements instead.

Requirements described here are transcribed from the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard version 2.0 (June 2026) and the Corporate Near-Term Criteria version 5.3.1 (April 2026) as published in September 2026. Criteria numbering and thresholds change between versions, so confirm the current text against the SBTi documents before submitting. We are not affiliated with the Science Based Targets initiative or SBTi Services, and we do not submit or model targets. Nothing here is legal or accounting advice.