🎙️ SFiT Sustainability Brief | Your SBTi Commitment Turns Five — Now What? Field Notes from a Footwear OEM Leader's Five-Year Review

SFiT Newsroom
Jul 8
4 min read

🎙️ Welcome to the SFiT Sustainability Brief. In this episode, we look at a notice that sooner or later lands in the inbox of many export manufacturers: the SBTi Mandatory Five-Year Review. Once your science-based climate commitment turns five, the SBTi comes knocking. What do you need to do, by when, and what happens if you ignore it? Here's your five-minute briefing.

📌 In This Episode

Five years after target validation, the SBTi's Mandatory Five-Year Review is automatically triggered
It is a criteria-alignment review — not an audit of your emission-reduction progress
Review results must be submitted within 6 months of the trigger date; misaligned targets must be re-validated within 12 months
Footwear focus: the FLAG 20% threshold and Scope 3 ambition are the two big hurdles
Miss the deadline and your targets are publicly flagged as Expired / Inactive

Background | What Is the Mandatory Five-Year Review?

Many companies assume that once a science-based target (SBT) is validated, the job is done. It isn't. Since 2019, the SBTi has run a Mandatory Five-Year Review: at the end of the month marking five years since your target validation was published, a review cycle automatically begins, requiring companies to re-benchmark their existing targets against the latest criteria.

The single most important concept: this is a criteria-alignment review, not a performance audit. Even if your emissions numbers are well ahead of schedule, targets whose ambition level, scope, or methodology no longer match current criteria will still need to be updated. Put differently — good numbers do not equal automatic approval.

Case in Point | A Footwear OEM Leader Approaching the Five-Year Mark

A footwear group that manufactures for major international retailers such as Walmart and Target is approaching the five-year anniversary of its SBTi commitment and recently received the review notice from SBTi Services. Here are the practical takeaways from that real-world situation, for every company on the same net-zero journey.

Three Milestones on the Clock

Trigger Date: the review starts automatically at the end of the month, five years after the initial target validation was published.
Within 6 months of the trigger date: submit your self-review results through the official online form; SBTi Services responds with a determination within 30 business days.
If targets are found misaligned: updated targets must be resubmitted for validation via the Validation Portal within 12 months of the trigger date.

The Action List | Five Things to Do

Benchmark against the latest cross-sector criteria now. That means the Near-Term Corporate Criteria and the Corporate Net-Zero Standard. We are in a version-transition period (Net-Zero Standard V2.0 has been released), so confirm which version applies to your submission — otherwise you may pass this review only to face a major overhaul at the next one.
Check the mandatory sector-specific criteria — and remember the official list is non-exhaustive. The notice only gives examples (Chemicals, Buildings, FLAG); the burden of judgment sits with the company. For footwear: you won't be forced onto the Chemicals pathway (sole materials are purchased upstream and sit in Scope 3), but FLAG — Forest, Land and Agriculture — must be screened by you. If land-related emissions from leather, natural rubber, cotton and similar materials exceed 20% of your total Scope 1+2+3, a separate FLAG target plus a no-deforestation commitment becomes mandatory. Industry averages cannot answer this for you; the answer depends on your own material mix.
Re-examine your Scope 3 ambition. Footwear's carbon footprint is overwhelmingly concentrated in Scope 3 (materials plus manufacturing), which almost inevitably exceeds the rule that a Scope 3 target is required once Scope 3 makes up 40% or more of total emissions. A Scope 3 target validated five years ago most likely tracks an older, more lenient pathway — the current minimum is well-below 2°C. This is the area most likely to be flagged for strengthening in a five-year review.
Reconcile your external disclosures. Base years, scope boundaries, and target figures must be consistent across CDP, EcoVadis, and the SBTi. The review doesn't assess performance, but inconsistent disclosure is where cracks appear first.
Confirm waiver and extension rules. If your next target year falls within 24 months of the trigger date, you may request a waiver; if you are waiting for a soon-to-be-mandatory sector standard, an extension of up to 18 months is possible. Either way, submitting the review form within 6 months is a hard deadline.

What If You Ignore It?

Miss the submission window and your target status is changed to Expired / Inactive — visible to everyone on the SBTi's public Target Dashboard, including customers, investors, and rating agencies. This is not just a compliance issue; it is a credibility issue.

Closing Note

Net zero is a marathon. The five-year review is not a bureaucratic hurdle — it is how a commitment stays aligned with science as the science evolves. Rather than waiting for the notice, start your self-benchmarking six months early and treat the review as a strategic health check: a chance to re-prioritize decarbonization across your supply chain.

📩 For more hands-on coverage of sustainability compliance and LCA practice, follow SFiT Sustainable Future Technology. If this episode helped you, share it with your supply-chain partners.