A target is one number. The path to it is the whole argument.
Two companies can promise the same number for the same year and put very different amounts of carbon into the atmosphere getting there, because the atmosphere responds to the area under the path and not to its endpoint.
01The pathway
Enter a base year and what you emitted in it, the year the target lands, and the annual rate; the default rate is the floor the Science Based Targets initiative sets for a near term Scope 1 and 2 target aligned with 1.5°C, a default rather than a rule.
02Linear against compounding
A linear path removes a fixed share of the base year every year; a compounding path removes a fixed share of last year, so the cut shrinks each year while the headline percentage stays the same. They are not the same commitment, and the gap between them is wider than the wording suggests.
03Where you actually are
Enter what you emitted in the years since the base year; blank years are left blank rather than interpolated.
04Method, and what this cannot tell you
The arithmetic, written out
- Absolute contraction, a straight line from the base yearE(t) = E₀ · (1 − r · (t − t₀))
- Compounding, the same headline rate applied to last yearE(t) = E₀ · (1 − r)^(t − t₀)
- Intensity convergence, a straight line under the intensityE(t) = I₀ · (1 − r · (t − t₀)) · A(t)
- Cumulative budget, the area under the path rather than its endpoint∫ E(t) dt
- Required rate from here, to still land on the targetr′ = (E_now − E_target) ÷ (E_now · (t_target − t_now))
The one constant on this page
Science Based Targets initiative, Absolute Contraction Approach. The binding text is the SBTi Corporate Near-Term Criteria, version 5.3.1, April 2026 sciencebasedtargets.org checked 2026 08 25
The rate is a floor for a base year of 2020; the criteria adjust it upward for later base years and set a separate lower rate for Scope 3, neither of which this page applies. Replace 4.2 per cent with the rate your own target was validated at, and read the criteria rather than this page.
What this page does not know
- Whether your target was ever validated, by anyone
- What is inside your inventory, which boundary it was drawn on, or whether the base year has been recalculated since
- Whether the reduction is real or the result of divesting, reclassifying or buying something
- Anything about removals, offsets or neutralisation, none of which appear anywhere in this arithmetic
- Whether a linear path is the right shape for your sector, which is a question the sectoral guidance answers and this page does not
Method behind it: the target path case study