# What changes force us to recalculate our SBTi target?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/sbti-target-recalculation-triggers-5-percent

C27 of the SBTi Corporate Near-Term Criteria V5.3.1 lists them: Scope 3 reaching 40% of the total, a new consolidation approach, big shifts in excluded emissions, acquisitions, divestments or outsourcing, and data corrections. The threshold is 5% or less: a 5% change in base year emissions inside a target boundary triggers recalculation.

## The triggers in C27

- Scope 3 becomes 40% or more of Scope 1, 2 and 3 combined.
- You change consolidation approach, for example from operational control to equity share.
- Emissions you excluded from the inventory or target change significantly.
- Acquisition, divestment, merger, insourcing or outsourcing, or a shift in what you sell.
- New data sources or methods, or errors found, that change base year emissions significantly.
- Other big changes to the projections behind the target, such as growth assumptions for an intensity target.

## Two 5% tests

- A 5% change in total base year emissions means you recalculate the base year (rebaseline).
- A 5% or larger change in the base year emissions covered by a target means that target is recalculated. The test runs on the scopes the target covers: a Scope 1+2 target is tested on Scope 1+2 alone.
- 5% is the ceiling. Your own policy can set a lower threshold.

## What you do next

1. Check whether the change is 5% or more of base year emissions.
2. If it is, restate the base year as if the change had always been there. SBTi does not accept rolling base years.
3. Check whether each affected target still meets the criteria: ambition and coverage.
4. If it does, and base year, ambition, method and target year are unchanged, you simply update the base year figure.
5. If it does not, book a target update with SBTi Services. Only the affected targets are revalidated, under the criteria in force at resubmission.

## Example: buying a forging unit

- Base year Scope 1+2: 2,000 t CO2e
- Acquired unit's emissions in that base year: 140 t
- 140 / 2,000 = 7%, above 5%: restate the base year to 2,140 t
- Separately, missing generator invoices found worth 60 t: 60 / 2,000 = 3%, below 5% on its own, but count it with any other errors

Example company. For an absolute target, the percentage cut stays; the tonnes it applies to change.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible keeps every fuel invoice and bill as a fingerprinted record with its factor, so when a site is added or an error is found you can see exactly which base year lines change. It does not set, submit or validate SBTi targets; SBTi Services validates them.

- [Get your carbon number](https://senseible.earth/msme-carbon-number)
- [Bought a unit mid-year: base year](https://senseible.earth/answers/bought-a-unit-mid-year-carbon-base-year)
- [Operational control vs equity share](https://senseible.earth/answers/operational-control-vs-equity-share)
- [SBTi five-year target review](https://senseible.earth/answers/sbti-five-year-target-review-deadline)

Sources: [SBTi, Corporate Near-Term Criteria V5.3.1 (final, April 2026, in effect from 14 April 2026): C27 and footnotes 29 to 31](https://files.sciencebasedtargets.org/production/files/SBTi-criteria.pdf), [SBTi, Frequently asked questions: updating the baseline](https://sciencebasedtargets.org/faqs)

Last reviewed 2026-11-01.