SBTi FLAG targets for food and agriculture companies (2026)
All you need to know about SBTi FLAG targets, from a GHGP-certified climate expert.
SBTi FLAG targets are a mandatory requirement for any company setting science-based targets from the food production, food and beverage processing, food and staples retailing, and tobacco industries. Such targets can also be applicable to organizations in any other sector. Under the SBTi framework, companies with FLAG-related emissions exceeding 20% of total emissions across scopes 1, 2 and 3 must also set FLAG targets alongside their standard emission reduction commitments. Getting it right is one of the more technically demanding parts of the validation process.
What is the SBTi FLAG methodology?
FLAG – Forest, Land and Agriculture is a sector-specific SBTi standard for organizations in land-intensive industries or value chains. SBTi FLAG targets must be in line with GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard (which will be enforced from 1 January 2027), covering Land Use Change (LUC) emissions, land management emissions and land management CO2 removals. It was created because land-use emissions have a fundamentally different profile to fossil-fuel emissions, as they include both sources and removals, carry greater measurement uncertainty, and cannot be reduced using the same pathways as energy or industrial processes. The current version can be found here: FLAG Guidance v1.2, published March 2026.
SBTi FLAG targets vs. standard (non-FLAG) SBTi targets
Standard SBTi targets cover fossil-based scope 1 and 2 emissions, and the fossil-related portions of scope 3 (also called ‘Energy & Industry emissions’): transport, manufacturing, business travel, and purchased goods and services. FLAG targets cover a separate set of emissions and removals related to land use change, agricultural operations, land management and biogenic carbon removals.
The critical distinction is how carbon removals are treated. Carbon sequestration from land – such as soil carbon enhancement, ecosystem restoration, improved forest management – can only be applied against FLAG targets. It cannot be used to neutralize fossil or industrial emissions in a company’s standard targets. This separation is structural and non-negotiable.
It’s important to note that both FLAG and standard targets are submitted together in a single SBTi validation package. Any company required to set FLAG targets must also address non-FLAG targets.
Which companies need FLAG targets?
SBTi uses a two-track approach to determine applicability.
Track 1: mandatory sectors (regardless of emission profile):
- Forest and Paper Products (Forestry, Timber, Pulp and Paper, Rubber)
- Food Production (Agricultural Production and Animal Source)
- Food and Beverage Processing
- Food and Staples Retailing
- Tobacco
Track 2: the 20% threshold:
Companies in any other sector must set a FLAG target if land-related emissions exceed 20% of their total scopes 1, 2, and 3 footprint.
This second track catches companies that may not think of themselves as agricultural. Hospitality businesses with significant food procurement, commercial landscaping companies, and retailers with large food ranges have all triggered the threshold.
Calculate FLAG emissions automatically with Normative
If you are unsure of your position, a complete scope 1, 2, and 3 materiality screening is the starting point. Normative’s platform automatically calculates FLAG emissions against your total footprint, so you know where you stand before committing to a target structure.
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How to calculate FLAG emissions and removals
FLAG emissions fall into three categories in line with the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard, that will come into effect from 1 January 2027:
- Land Use Change (LUC): Emissions from converting natural ecosystems to agricultural land covering deforestation, peatland drainage, grassland conversion and more.
- Land Management: Including non-CO2 emissions from livestock (enteric fermentation, manure), synthetic fertiliser application, and forest management.
- Land management CO2 removals: CO2 sequestered through ecosystem restoration, improved forest management, and soil carbon enhancement.
Calculation pathways
SBTi offers two approaches to FLAG target-setting:
- FLAG Sector Pathway: This is recommended for demand-side companies, those such as food retailers and processors, that are sourcing from diversified commodity portfolios due to them buying or selling large volumes of FLAG products. It is an ‘absolute reduction approach’ so companies choosing this pathway must set science-based reduction targets in line with limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. This comes with a science-based rate of mitigation of 3.03% per year.
- Commodity Pathways: These are generally a good option for companies producing FLAG commodities that therefore have most of their FLAG-related emissions falling under scope 1. They are intensity-based reduction targets including eleven FLAG commodities, including beef, dairy, soy, palm oil, and timber.
Data requirements
Physical activity data is required, such as commodity volumes, product weights, hectares under management. This differs significantly from the spend-based methods many companies use for standard Scope 3 categories.
Access sector-specific emission factors with Normative
Normative’s partnerships with HowGood, whose agricultural database covers more than 90,000 crop- and location-specific emission factors, and Klimato, which provides a database covering more than 4,000 unique ingredients with 20,000 variations by origin and production method, allow you to pull category-specific emissions data straight into your carbon reporting. As a result, food and beverage customers get access to ingredient-level FLAG data directly within the Normative platform, without building a separate data collection programme from scratch. The Normative platform can then make the FLAG calculations using four different databases for calculating land-related emissions: Exiobase, Agribalyse, Ecoinvent and Concito.
SBTi FLAG target-setting requirements
To pass SBTi validation, companies must satisfy some key requirements:
Near-term FLAG science-based targets: 5-10 year emissions reduction targets aligned with climate science. For submissions made in 2026, the near-term target endpoint is approximately 2035.
Long-term FLAG science-based targets: these require organizations to set targets to reduce FLAG emissions by at least 72% by 2050.
No-deforestation commitment: This is a mandatory prerequisite for validation, not a target type. Under v1.2, companies setting FLAG targets for the first time have up to two years after submitting their targets for validation to eliminate deforestation, with an absolute deadline of December 31, 2030 for submissions after 2028. There is no extension beyond this date.
The commitment requires demonstrable supply chain traceability, not just a policy declaration. For food retailers and processors sourcing from multi-tier supply chains, this is an operational undertaking that needs to start before submission, not after.
Common implementation challenges
- Supply chain traceability. Mapping commodity sourcing to individual farms, far enough to verify deforestation-free origins, is one of the hardest requirements for food retailers and processors. Most companies start with country-of-origin data and build toward farm-level traceability. Given the 2030 deadline, this cannot be left until the final year.
- Measurement uncertainty.Soil carbon and land use change calculations carry significantly higher uncertainty than standard energy measurements, with substantial regional variation. It’s therefore highly recommended to standardize your FLAG emission factors before establishing a base year. Changing methodology after the baseline is set undermines year-on-year comparability and it’s a risk that can feed directly into theSBTi rebaselining process.
- Accounting for removals correctly. Biogenic removals must be kept separate from standard fossil-emission accounting.
- The deforestation deadline. Companies are expected to publish supply chain progress on an ongoing basis under FLAG, creating public accountability for pace of change. For businesses with complex sourcing in high-risk commodity regions such as beef, soy, palm oil, and timber, meeting 2030 is a procurement transformation, not a reporting exercise.
Normative has a 100% SBTi validation rate
Our GHG Protocol-certified Climate Strategy Advisors have guided food and beverage companies through FLAG from initial screening to validated targets, including building the activity-level data needed to support a clean submission.
FAQs
FLAG (Forest, Land and Agriculture) is an SBTi standard covering land-based emissions and removals, including deforestation, livestock, fertilisers, and soil carbon sequestration. It was developed because land-use emissions cannot be measured or reduced using the same approaches as fossil-fuel emissions and require a separate target-setting standard.
Food Production, Food & Beverage Processing, and Food & Staples Retailing companies must set FLAG targets regardless of their emission profile. Any other company where land-use emissions exceed 20% of total scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions also requires a FLAG target. This is a threshold that can be triggered by hospitality, retail, or landscaping businesses, for example.
Businesses need to focus on using physical activity data like commodity volumes, product weights, and hectares, to produce a more defensible submission for SBTi FLAG targets.
It is a mandatory prerequisite for FLAG target validation and requires zero deforestation across primary supply chains from a cutoff date of 2020 or earlier. Under v1.2, companies have up to two years post-submission to achieve this, with a hard outer limit of December 31, 2030.
Both are submitted in the same SBTi validation package but assessed separately. Standard Scope 3 targets cover fossil-related value chain emissions under the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain Standard. FLAG targets cover land-use emissions under the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard. It’s important to remember that carbon removals from land can only count toward FLAG targets not toward standard fossil or industrial emission targets.
