SBTi reconstitutes Technical Council with new chair and staggered renewal model
The Science Based Targets initiative announced the completion of appointments to the new cohort of its independent Technical Council, the body responsible for reviewing and approving SBTi standards, methods and normative guidance. The council, which begins work this month, will operate under a staggered renewal model introduced to support continuity and widen the diversity of expertise, regions and stakeholder perspectives across the body’s membership.
Laura Draucker, previously vice chair of the council, has been appointed chair. Piers Forster takes on the role of vice chair. Together they lead a 16-strong body that combines newly selected members with individuals renewed for either a 12-month or 24-month extension under the staggered model. Five wholly new members, appointed for a full 36-month term running from July 2026 to June 2029, join the incoming council following an open, merit-based selection process overseen by an independent Nominations Committee. The Nominations Committee included two external independent members alongside the outgoing chair and vice chair and a representative from the SBTi Board of Trustees.
The SBTi said the council’s expertise will be critical as the organisation rolls out its updated Corporate Net-Zero Standard, Version 2.0, which was published in 2026 and will be open for company target submissions from early 2027. The standard represents the most significant revision since the initiative was founded, and the reconstituted Technical Council will be responsible for overseeing its technical architecture as implementation proceeds across the tens of thousands of companies now participating in the SBTi framework. The new staggered model replaces the previous approach under which all council members cycled simultaneously, which was identified as a risk to continuity during the review and approval of major standards updates.
The governance change is notable for voluntary carbon market participants because SBTi standards increasingly govern the conditions under which companies may use carbon credits as part of their net-zero transition plans. Version 2.0 of the Corporate Net-Zero Standard sets new requirements around the use of beyond-value-chain mitigation, a category that includes voluntary carbon credit purchases, and the Technical Council will be the authoritative body adjudicating the technical integrity of those frameworks going forward.
