Which SBTi Sector Guidance Applies to You?
SBTi publishes sector guidance for buildings, transport, steel, cement, maritime and FLAG. What exists, what vintage it carries, and the sectors with none at all.
Setting a science-based target is not one process. For some sectors SBTi publishes a specific pathway; for others you work through the general corporate route. Knowing which applies to you saves a good deal of wasted effort, and the answer is not always the one people expect.
What exists
| Sector | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings | Criteria v1.1, June 2025 | Includes a target-setting tool. Among the most current |
| Supplier engagement | v1.1, July 2025 | The most recent of the set |
| Land transport | v1.1, October 2024 | Includes an SDA transport tool |
| Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) | v1.1, December 2023 | With a getting-started guide |
| Steel | v1.0, July 2023 | Still at version 1.0 |
| Maritime transport | v1.1, May 2023 | Includes a tool |
| Cement | v1.0, September 2022 | The oldest in the set |
| Power | Quick start, undated | 1.5°C quick start rather than full guidance |
Versions and dates above reflect the position as at 28 August 2026.
Read the vintage before you read the document
SBTi revises frequently, and the documents do not reliably state which version supersedes which. That makes the date on the cover page load-bearing.
Cement (September 2022), maritime transport (May 2023) and steel (July 2023) are the oldest, and therefore the ones most likely to have moved since. If your target setting turns on a specific criterion in any of them, verify against the SBTi website rather than the PDF in your possession. A criterion quoted confidently from a superseded document is worse than no criterion.
The buildings and supplier engagement guidance, both mid-2025, are the most current and the safest to work from directly.
The gaps, which matter more than the list
There is no SBTi sector guidance for aviation, chemicals, oil and gas, or apparel.
For the Gulf, the absence of oil and gas guidance is the significant one. Hydrocarbons dominate the industrial base across the GCC, and companies in the sector setting science-based targets fall back on the general corporate route: the Corporate Net-Zero Standard and the near-term criteria, without a sector-specific decarbonisation pathway to work against.
Two practical consequences follow.
Benchmarking is harder. A sector pathway gives you a defensible answer to “is this ambitious enough for our industry”. Without one, the comparison is against a cross-sector trajectory that was not designed for the sector’s structure.
The Scope 3 question gets sharper. For an oil and gas producer, the overwhelming majority of lifecycle emissions sit in the use of sold products. How that is treated is the central methodological question for the sector, and it is exactly the question a sector guidance would ordinarily settle.
Chemicals presents a related problem for the Gulf’s substantial petrochemical base, and for the same reason: complex product portfolios with emissions concentrated downstream.
None of this makes target setting impossible. It makes it a piece of analytical work rather than a form-filling exercise, and it means the reasoning behind the target needs to be documented far more carefully, because there is no published pathway to point at.
How to use this
- Find your sector in the table. If it is there, start with that guidance and check the version first.
- If it is not there, you are on the cross-sector route. Read the Corporate Net-Zero Standard and the near-term criteria, and expect to do more work justifying the ambition level.
- Check supplier engagement regardless of sector. At version 1.1, July 2025, it is current, and it applies to almost anyone with a material Scope 3 footprint.
- Check FLAG if you touch food, timber or fibre, including through the value chain. The threshold catches more businesses than expected.
How ESGweise helps
We map a company to the right SBTi route, including where no sector guidance exists and the ambition case has to be built from first principles, and we do the inventory work underneath it. See our ESG strategy and carbon services, and our oil and gas and heavy industry and manufacturing practices.
If you are in a sector with no published pathway, talk to us about how to build the case.
Related guides
Frequently asked questions
Which sectors does SBTi publish guidance for?
The set includes buildings, supplier engagement, land transport, forest land and agriculture (FLAG), steel, maritime transport, cement, and a quick-start for the power sector. Versions range from September 2022 to July 2025. Check the current version on the SBTi website before relying on any of them, because the older documents are the ones most likely to have been revised.
Is there SBTi guidance for oil and gas?
No dedicated oil and gas sector guidance is published. That matters in the Gulf, where hydrocarbons dominate the industrial base. Companies in the sector generally work through the cross-sector route using the Corporate Net-Zero Standard and near-term criteria rather than a sector-specific pathway, which makes benchmarking against peers harder.
Which sectors have no SBTi guidance at all?
Aviation, chemicals, oil and gas, and apparel have no dedicated sector guidance in the set we hold. Companies in these sectors set targets through the general corporate route instead.
How do I know if the sector guidance I am reading is current?
Check the version and date on the document itself, then verify against the SBTi website. SBTi documents are revised frequently and do not always state clearly which version supersedes which. The cement guidance dates from September 2022 and the steel and maritime guidance from 2023, so those in particular warrant a check before use.