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Pathway is where a footprint stops being a measurement and becomes a plan. You designate a base year, set a reduction target against it, and track actual emissions against the trajectory as each subsequent assessment completes. The number on its own tells you where you are. A pathway tells you whether you are moving fast enough.

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Set your base year first

The base year is the reference point every future reduction is measured from. Nothing else in Pathway works until it is set, and changing it later means restating your whole trend. Choose one that is:
  • Recent enough to be representative. A base year from an unusual trading period will distort every percentage that follows.
  • Complete enough to defend. Weak baseline data makes an impressive-looking reduction that falls apart under questioning.
  • Stable. If you know a large acquisition is imminent, the year before it may not be the right anchor.
A base year with modest coverage is not automatically a bad base year, as long as its gaps are documented. What causes problems is a baseline whose scope quietly differs from the years measured against it, which makes the reduction an artefact of coverage rather than a real change.

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Write a recalculation policy

Decide in advance when you will restate the base year, and write it down before you need it. The GHG Protocol expects recalculation for structural changes:
  • Acquisitions, divestments, and mergers
  • Outsourcing or insourcing an emitting activity
  • Significant methodology changes or data quality improvements
  • Discovery of a material error
Not for organic growth. If the business grew and emissions grew with it, the trend should show that. Set a significance threshold up front. Deciding after the fact whether a change was material is precisely the judgement a reviewer will press on. See GHG Protocol alignment.

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Define the target

A target needs four things:
  • A base year, already designated
  • A target year, the point the reduction is measured at
  • A reduction percentage, against the base year
  • A scope, stating which emissions are covered
Be explicit about that last one. “40% by 2030” is not a target until it says whether it covers Scope 1 and 2 only, or Scope 3 as well, and whether it is absolute or intensity-based. Absolute targets reduce total tonnes. Intensity targets reduce emissions per unit of revenue, per employee, or per product. Intensity targets can be met while total emissions rise, which is why frameworks generally expect an absolute target alongside any intensity one.

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Track against the trajectory

Once the target exists, each completed assessment plots against the line. What you are looking for is not a single year’s movement but whether the gap between actual and required is opening or closing. Two things to watch when reading it:
  • Check the boundary before you celebrate a drop. If a site closed or a data source was removed, the fall may be a coverage change rather than a reduction. See Understanding your dashboard and charts.
  • Watch the categories, not just the total. A total that holds steady can conceal a real reduction in one category offset by growth in another. The category view is where the actual story is.

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Keep the method constant

The most common way a target becomes unreadable is a methodology change midway through. Upgrading a category from spend-based to activity data usually changes its measured emissions, so an improvement in data quality can look like a jump in emissions. That is not a reason to avoid improving your data. It is a reason to do two things when you do:
  1. Note the change in that year’s methodology
  2. Consider whether your recalculation policy requires restating the base year
Handled this way, a data upgrade strengthens the target. Handled silently, it destroys the comparison.

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If you are aiming for SBTi validation

Pathway gives you the inventory, base year, and tracking that a science-based target rests on. It does not submit or validate: that is SBTi’s process, with its own criteria and review. The criteria are also changing. Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 takes effect 31 January 2027 and becomes mandatory for new submissions from 1 February 2028, with materially stricter Scope 3 coverage rules. See Science-based targets before committing to a trajectory.

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If you report under AASB S2

Disclosed targets carry their own requirements: the objective, the scope covered, the base year and period, milestones, progress against them, and whether a third party validated the target. S2 does not require you to set a target. It requires accurate disclosure of the ones you have, which means a target announced in a media release is a target you must now report against. See AASB S2 reporting.

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