Your company builds, owns or manages buildings, and it is preparing SBTi targets. A standard target for Scopes 1, 2 and 3 may not be enough. The SBTi asks some real estate companies for a separate buildings target, per square metre, that also covers the energy their tenants use. Whether this applies to you depends on your role and on two 20% thresholds.
- SBTi Buildings Criteria: apply to developers, owners, property managers and financial institutions with building emissions of at least 20%.
- Two groups of emissions: operational and embodied emissions each get a separate target.
- Target calculation: for the whole building, with tenants and refrigerants, in kg CO₂e per square metre.
- Submission: the SBTi target-setting tool and a public commitment to install no new fossil fuel equipment from 2030.
When must a company apply the SBTi Buildings Criteria?
A sector pathway is one part of an SBTi target, next to the targets for Scopes 1, 2 and 3. Some sector pathways are mandatory and some are optional. Buildings are mandatory, as are power, cement, steel and forest, land and agriculture, among others.
If your company qualifies for the buildings pathway, you must apply its criteria when you set your target. Three things decide whether you qualify, in this order:
- the group you belong to;
- your role in relation to buildings;
- the share of building emissions in your carbon footprint.
Who are you in the eyes of the SBTi?
The check starts before buildings even appear. First, the SBTi asks which group your company belongs to:
- financial institutions: they have their own pathway, but the buildings criteria can apply to them if they meet the thresholds below;
- SMEs: for them, the buildings criteria are optional;
- all other companies: they follow the standard route, and the buildings criteria apply to them most often.
Your role in relation to the building matters, not your sector
Working in construction does not mean you must apply the Buildings Criteria. The SBTi looks above all at the role your company plays in relation to the building:
- developer;
- owner who uses the building;
- owner who rents the building to others;
- property manager;
- financial institution;
- building contractor;
- building materials manufacturer;
- architect;
- engineering firm;
- demolition firm.
So this pathway may not cover a contractor or a materials maker. But it may cover a property fund or an owner who rents out buildings. But the role is only the first condition.
The 20% threshold: operational or embodied emissions
The second condition is the weight of building emissions in your carbon footprint. The SBTi uses two separate 20% thresholds. Both are measured against your total emissions in Scopes 1, 2 and 3 (categories 1–14):
- operational emissions from buildings you own or manage, which arise while the building is in use. They come from electricity, gas, district heat and refrigerants. If they make up at least 20% in the base year, you must apply the criteria and set a target for these emissions;
- embodied emissions from new developments or from buildings you bought as the first owner. If they exceeded 20% in any of the three years before the target submission, you must also set a target for them.
You do not have to exceed both thresholds. Depending on your business, one of them applies, or both.
Several roles at once
A company can play several roles at once. For example, it builds as a developer, keeps some buildings and rents them to tenants. In that case, it cannot choose the one most convenient category. It must include all its roles and all the emissions linked to them.
Operational and embodied emissions: two separate targets
The buildings criteria split emissions into two groups that arise at very different points in a building's life. Operational emissions arise every year while the building is in use. They come from heating, cooling, lighting, equipment and refrigerant leaks. Embodied emissions arise once, before the building opens. They come from making and moving materials, and from the building work.
A company that must meet both requirements cannot merge them into one target. It sets one target for each group.
If you do not have this data for your developments yet, the starting point is a carbon footprint calculation for each building.
How to read the criteria, examples from real submissions and a validation checklist, based on the submissions we have worked on.
Download for free →How is a buildings target calculated?
Four rules decide what data you need to show building emissions reliably. They are what most often surprises companies the first time.
The whole building, including tenants
The target for operational emissions covers all energy used in the building. This includes spaces the owner or manager controls and spaces rented by tenants, whatever consolidation approach you use. The SBTi wants to see the real emissions of the whole building, not only the part on the owner's own invoices.
So it is not enough to show power for shared areas, corridor lights, lifts or energy you buy for the whole site. You must also include energy use in tenants' spaces, even when tenants have their own energy contracts. This leads to a very practical first question: do you have data on your tenants' energy use?
Refrigerants inside the target boundary
The whole-building approach does not end with energy. The criteria also require leaks, above all refrigerant leaks from air conditioning, heat pumps and cooling systems. They must be in both the inventory and the target boundary, also when the equipment runs in tenants' spaces.
A target in kg CO₂e per square metre
The target for operational emissions is set per unit of area: kilograms of CO₂e per square metre. The area is the total floor area of the building, with tenants' spaces and common areas. You must use the same definition of area in the base year and in the target year.
Separately for building types and locations
A company with different types of buildings, or buildings in several countries, does not calculate one average. In the SBTi tool, you first group buildings by type and location. For example, offices in Germany form one group, warehouses in Germany another and offices in the UK a third.
Each group has its own reduction pathway. Only at the end are the results combined into one target for all your buildings. This way, a high-emission group of buildings does not disappear in an average with buildings that already have low emissions.
What should you prepare for the submission?
The buildings criteria go beyond counting emissions. You fill in the SBTi Buildings Target-Setting Tool. You also make a commitment that will shape your investment plans for years.
No new fossil fuel equipment from 2030
You must publicly commit that from 2030 at the latest, you will not install new fossil fuel equipment in buildings you own or control financially. This covers heating, hot water, cooking and power made on site, in new and old buildings.
This is not a duty to replace all boilers in 2030. An existing installation can run until the end of its life. But when it wears out, you should not replace it with another fossil fuel system. Exceptions include backup systems and cases where the law requires it.
The SBTi also suggests that you publicly commit to make these buildings use less energy. But this is only advice. Validation does not check it.
Checklist before validation
Before your submission goes to validation, four questions should be closed:
Your role in the building and the 20% threshold for either group of emissions.
Operational, embodied or both groups; in the last case, two separate targets.
The whole building with tenants and refrigerants, in kg CO₂e per m², split by building type and location.
The SBTi tool with your figures, the public 2030 commitment and proof of your data and assumptions, if needed.
When these are ready, you can move on to validation itself. We describe how it works, how long it takes and what happens after approval in our guide to science based targets.
Do you need support with your SBTi target submission?
Almost one in four Polish SBTi submissions went through our hands: we handled 23% of approved submissions from Poland up to the end of 2024. We were among the first to guide companies through this process. We cover the emissions inventory, the choice of pathway, the target, validation and yearly progress reports.
See how we handle SBTi target submission and validation.