Summary
Details
- Global
The SBTi FLAG Guidance applies to companies with significant greenhouse gas emissions from forests, land and agriculture that are setting science-based targets through the SBTi. This includes companies operating in land-intensive sectors such as forestry and paper products, agricultural and animal-source food production, food and beverage processing, food and staples retailing, and tobacco.
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Background
Agriculture, forestry and other land-use activities are both major sources of greenhouse gas emissions and important potential carbon sinks. Their emissions arise from activities such as deforestation, land conversion, livestock, fertilizers, manure management and agricultural production, while forests, soils and other land systems can also remove carbon from the atmosphere. SBTi estimates that the FLAG sector accounts for around 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The FLAG Guidance was developed to bring these emissions and removals more explicitly into corporate science-based target setting. SBTi began the project with support from WWF and input from technical experts and companies in the agriculture, forestry and other land-use sectors.
A central feature of FLAG is the separation of land-related emissions from energy and industrial emissions. A company required to use FLAG therefore sets a FLAG target for relevant land-sector emissions and removals while maintaining a separate science-based target for its energy and industry emissions. This prevents land-based carbon removals from being used to compensate for insufficient reductions in fossil-fuel and industrial emissions.
Key Requirements
Companies subject to the Guidance must account for relevant land-related emissions and removals and establish a separate FLAG science-based target. The target boundary can include emissions from land-use change, land management and agricultural activities, as well as qualifying carbon removals occurring on working lands within the company's value chain. FLAG targets cannot be achieved by purchasing carbon offsets.
Companies can generally use the FLAG sector pathway, which provides an overall emissions-reduction pathway for agriculture, forestry and land-related activities, or eligible commodity-specific pathways for commodities such as beef, dairy, rice, soy, wheat and palm oil. Companies may combine approaches where appropriate.
Another important requirement concerns deforestation. Companies setting FLAG targets must make a no-deforestation commitment covering specified commodities. Version 1.2 strengthened the requirements around target dates, commodity coverage, public documentation and cutoff dates. Companies are expected to use a deforestation cutoff date of 2020 or earlier, with specific rules applying where this is not feasible.
Current Status
The current framework is FLAG Guidance Version 1.2, published in March 2026. The update primarily revised requirements concerning companies with existing science-based targets and strengthened the no-deforestation criteria. It also reflects developments following publication of the GHG Protocol's Land Sector and Removals Standard.
A more substantial revision is in progress as of September 2026. SBTi is developing FLAG Standard V2.0, which is expected to align the framework more closely with the forthcoming Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2 and the new GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard. SBTi says the revision will involve expert working groups and pilot testing and will take more than 12 months to complete. Until the new Standard is finalized, FLAG Guidance V1.2 remains the operative framework for setting FLAG targets.
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