Press release
New SBTi standard requires companies to scale permanent carbon removal up to 285x by mid-century
New modeling from Supercritical shows why companies that wait until 2035 will struggle to catch up.
LONDON, June 11, 2026—The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) today published Version 2.0 of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard (CNZS), the framework behind the climate targets of nearly 11,000 companies. For the first time, the standard makes permanent carbon removal mandatory.
From 2035, companies setting targets under the standard must purchase verified carbon dioxide removal to cover their ongoing emissions, scaling to 100% coverage by their net-zero year. A rising share of that removal must be long-lived, climbing to 100% by the net-zero year. Long-lived removals store carbon for at least 200 years, through methods such as biochar, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and direct air capture (DAC).
New modeling by Supercritical shows what this means in practice. The requirement starts tiny, at roughly one-tenth of one percent of a company's ongoing emissions in 2035, then grows every year until it reaches full coverage at the net-zero year. The result is an increase of between 250 and 285 times across every sector Supercritical modeled. A large company's annual permanent removal obligation in 2050 ranges from around 258,000 tonnes for a technology firm to roughly 4 million tonnes for a shipping company. In 2035, those same companies would need only hundreds to low thousands of tonnes.
For context, the durable carbon removal market has delivered around 1.5 million tonnes in total to date, according to industry tracker CDR.fyi, less than a single large company's annual obligation in 2050.
"The requirement is small enough to start today. It will not be small enough to start in 2035. Permanent carbon removal at this scale takes years to source and deliver, and the cheapest credible pathways are rising in price, not falling. Companies that treat the early years as breathing room will find themselves trying to buy enormous volumes at the same moment as everyone else, from a supply base that has not yet been built."
"Every serious buyer we work with is asking what this means for them and what it will cost. The answer is different for every company, but the strategy is the same. The years before 2035 are the window to build supplier relationships and secure supply, because demand has now been written into the world's most widely used net-zero standard. Acting early is how companies manage both the cost and the risk."
Closing that gap is the purpose of Supercritical's Supply Development Program. Rather than wait for supply to materialize, Supercritical develops permanent removal projects directly, taking early-stage producers from engineering design through to signed offtake. The aim is to bring capacity online ahead of demand, so buyers who act now have credible projects to procure.
V2.0 becomes mandatory for all new SBTi targets from January 2028. Companies with existing validated targets continue under the current version until transition guidance is published.
The new requirements arrive as carbon removal policy accelerates worldwide. The EU has adopted its first CRCF certification methodologies for permanent removals and is expected to publish a legislative proposal on integrating CDR into its Emissions Trading Scheme on 15 July. The UK will integrate engineered removals into its own scheme by 2029, and the US has preserved its 45Q tax credit at $180 per tonne for direct air capture.
Supercritical has published an analysis of the new standard and a free calculator that models company-specific removal obligations and costs under V2.0, available at sbti-calculator.gosupercritical.com. The full standard is available on the SBTi website.
About Supercritical
Supercritical is the carbon removal marketplace that helps corporate buyers design, source, and deliver durable CDR portfolios. The company sources and develops supply through exclusive partnerships and project development with early-stage producers. It provides scientific vetting and delivery risk management to corporate buyers running multi-year procurement programs. Supercritical has facilitated nearly 2 million tonnes of carbon removal for 200+ buyers and tracks more than 600 suppliers across 80% of the global durable CDR market. The company's science team advises SBTi on CDR standards. gosupercritical.com
Contact
Pat Adams, pat@gosupercritical.com
Notes to editors
Modeling methodology: Figures are drawn from Supercritical's Ongoing Emissions Responsibility Calculator, which applies SBTi's sector decarbonization pathways and the V2.0 mandatory-phase ramps (coverage rising from 1% to 100% of ongoing emissions, and the long-lived share of that coverage rising from 10% to 100%, both between 2035 and the net-zero year) to representative large-company emissions profiles for each sector. The "ongoing emissions" base is a company's full Scope 1, 2, and 3 footprint as it declines along its reduction pathway. Sector profiles are based on public Forbes Global 2000 and sector-average data. Per-company figures are illustrative and depend on a company's individual emissions and net-zero target year; companies should recalculate against their own footprint.
Permanent carbon removal required under V2.0, by sector (illustrative large company). The figures compare the 2035 and 2050 requirements under the same standard, showing how the obligation grows over the mandatory phase. They are not a comparison to current procurement.
| Sector | 2035 requirement | 2050 requirement | Increase |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shipping & logistics | 12,200 t | 4.02 Mt | 249x |
| Automotive | 6,200 t | 1.65 Mt | 265x |
| Consumer goods & retail | 5,100 t | 1.36 Mt | 269x |
| Diversified large-cap | 3,000 t | 845,500 t | 284x |
| Pharmaceuticals | 2,000 t | 554,400 t | 271x |
| Technology & software | 947 t | 257,700 t | 272x |