# Our product helps customers cut emissions. Can that count toward our SBTi target?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/sbti-avoided-emissions-not-counted

No. C12 of the SBTi Corporate Near-Term Criteria V5.3.1 says avoided emissions sit in a separate accounting system from corporate inventories and do not count toward near-term targets. C11 says the same for carbon credits. Your target is judged on your own Scope 1, 2 and 3.

## What does count

If your product uses energy, its use-phase emissions sit in your Scope 3 category 11, use of sold products. Selling a more efficient model lowers that figure for the same number of units, and that drop is a real change in your inventory. What you cannot do is subtract the gap between your product and a competitor's or an older design.

## Where avoided emissions can go

- In a separate statement, next to the inventory, never netted from it.
- With the comparison stated: what product, what use pattern, what grid factor.
- In sales material, worded as an estimate for the customer, not as your reduction.

## Under the Net-Zero Standard V2.0

V2.0, which applies from 1 February 2027, adds a voluntary recognition for climate action beyond the value chain. Footnote 64 to C41 says product-level avoided emissions from the use of sold products are not eligible for it either.

## Example: an efficient pump

- 10,000 pumps sold, 900 kWh a year each, 10-year life, 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh
- Category 11: 10,000 x 900 x 10 x 0.675 / 1,000 = 60,750 t CO2, which goes in the inventory
- Old model at 1,100 kWh a year: 10,000 x 1,100 x 10 x 0.675 / 1,000 = 74,250 t
- Gap of 13,500 t: avoided emissions, reported separately, never subtracted
- If last year you sold 10,000 old pumps and this year 10,000 new ones, category 11 falls from 74,250 t to 60,750 t, and that fall counts

Example company. One grid factor (CEA, FY 2025-26) is used for all ten years for simplicity; real use-phase estimates follow the method you choose for category 11.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible builds your own Scope 1 and 2 from bills and invoices and keeps Scope 3 purchase lines in a separate supplier evidence trail. It does not count avoided emissions as reductions. It does not set, submit or validate SBTi targets; SBTi Services validates them.

- [How to calculate avoided emissions](https://senseible.earth/answers/how-to-calculate-avoided-emissions)
- [Can carbon credits count toward SBTi?](https://senseible.earth/answers/can-carbon-credits-count-toward-sbti-target)
- [What is Scope 4?](https://senseible.earth/answers/what-is-scope-4-avoided-emissions)
- [Scope 3 supplier evidence](https://senseible.earth/scope-3-supplier-evidence)

Sources: [SBTi, Corporate Near-Term Criteria V5.3.1 (final, April 2026, in effect from 14 April 2026): C11, C12](https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/SBTi-criteria.pdf), [SBTi, Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0, Criteria (final, June 2026): C41 and footnote 64](https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/Corporate-Net-Zero-Standard-V2-Criteria.pdf), [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard: category 11](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, version 22.0](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-11-01.