Schrödinger's Net Zero Target: When Climate Targets Change Without Anyone Noticing

Companies often announce net zero targets to huge fanfare, bold headlines and polished press releases. But later changes to those commitments are often made quietly – edited, revised, rescoped or abandoned. The original pledge may remain, but changes are obscured. Here, I examine how to spot these changes, and why they matter for credible corporate net zero targets and the climate action they underpin.

Unlike financial reporting, which must comply with strict accounting standards to ensure transparency, most countries do not yet have an equivalent regulatory framework governing corporate climate commitments. In the absence of binding standards or universal disclosure requirements, most companies have been free to revise their plans without clearly explaining what has changed and why. 

Revisions are often quietly embedded deep within reports or web pages, escaping scrutiny from media, investors and the general public. This enforcement gap creates perverse incentives for greenwashing and strategic ambiguity, allowing companies to shift the goalposts, with negligible risks of being publicly challenged. 

The result is a kind of ‘Schrödinger’s net zero target’: commitments may appear intact from the outside but, on closer inspection, may no longer exist in their original form. The state of the commitments are unknowable until you look inside the box. Just as Schrödinger’s cat is simultaneously dead and alive, targets could be simultaneously on track, or fundamentally altered. In many cases, companies make it very difficult to look inside the box. Detecting material changes to targets is difficult due to a lack of transparency, which serves to undermine accountability.

Why independent tracking matters

Independently verified climate data is a public good. Despite regulatory efforts in the EU, voluntary transparency is still the primary mechanism for accountability. The Net Zero Tracker was created to fill this gap. It systematically scrutinises net zero commitments across countries, regions, cities and companies.. For companies, it assesses targets against a set of credibility criteria, including whether a clear end target exists, the target year and which emissions scopes are covered. This creates a historical record of how targets evolve over time.

How some companies quietly revise climate plans

Changes to corporate climate policy tend to be tucked away in places only experts, eagle-eye journalists or our dedicated volunteers can find. Here, we share examples from our database that illustrate common tactics used to disclose, or obscure, material changes to climate commitments.

1. Royal Dutch Shell

What changed?

Dropped its previous target of a 45% reduction in net carbon intensity by 2035; revised its 2030 target for net carbon intensity reduction from 20% to 15‑20%.

How it was disclosed

Included in sustainability report

Information hidden on page 49 of the report in small print. Information on previous targets is provided to enable comparison. 

Why this matters for transparency

Material changes to interim targets were not highlighted clearly, making them difficult to detect without line-by-line comparison. The inclusion of the previous target for comparison enables comparison across reporting periods.

2. Tractor Supply Company 

What changed?

All climate targets were dropped.

How it was disclosed

Shared in a news report

The cancellation of the target is point five in a five point list. ‘Withdraw our carbon emission goals’ language used.

Why this matters for transparency

Material changes were communicated outside formal sustainability reporting, reducing visibility and traceability of the change to stakeholders. Changes contained within the list, not the main headline so requires careful reading.

3. UBS

What changed?

Target delayed by 10 years from 2025 to 2035.

How it was disclosed

Included in a sustainability report

Information relegated to page 44 of the report. Neutral language such as ‘replaced’ is used.

Why this matters for transparency

Difficult to identify without detailed comparison or close reading and comparison to prior disclosures. Significance not immediately clear from neutral language.

4. Wells Fargo

What changed?

Dropped Scope 3 (full value chain) targets

How it was disclosed

Updated on a section of the website

 Framed using neutral language, such as ‘Discontinued’ and ‘adjusting’.

Why this matters for transparency

The removal of Scope 3 targets only accessible through an obscure webpage dropdown, significantly reducing visibility, and making it difficult for stakeholders to detect the change. Significance not immediately clear from neutral language.

5. HSBC

What changed?

Dropped its 2030 net zero target for emissions across its business (operations, travel, supply‑chain), shifting to a 40% emissions reduction. Pushed back full net zero end date from 2030 to 2050.

How it was disclosed

Webpage update.

Neutral language such as ‘revisited’ used.

Why this matters for transparency

Significant revisions were hard to identify, limiting visibility. Challenging for stakeholders to track and understand changes. Significance not immediately clear from neutral language.

6. Volvo

What changed?

Lowered its 2030 emissions reduction target from 75% to 65-75%.

How it was disclosed

Press release.

Framed as an ‘adjustment’.

Why this matters for transparency

Significance of material change in ambition not immediately clear from neutral language.

These examples illustrate how transparency can be quietly undermined. The cumulative effect is that tracking changes requires detailed sleuthing: comparing annual sustainability plans line by line, metric by metric, and piecing together fragments of information scattered across different sources.

What good practice should look like: visible, comparable, accountable.

To improve transparency, we recommend five practical measures:

1. A one page summary at the top of sustainability reports with high-level details on:
   1. Targets for emission reductions, the intended use and purpose of carbon credits/contributions, intended use and purpose of carbon removals (e.g. to counterbalance residual emissions), fossil fuel phase out plan and date, current emissions total and trends, whether a SMART action plan exists, the emissions scopes covered by the target, financial alignment, just transition and policy advocacy/lobbying.
   2. ‘Material changes since last report’
2. Plain-language explanations of what has changed and why.
3. Consistent terminology for revisions across reporting years.
4. Archived versions of previous targets that remain publicly accessible.
5. Equal visibility for changes as for original announcements.

Transparency enables ambition to be rewarded, as well as reinforced.

The Ambition Loop concept illustrates that climate commitments by national governments, cities, regions, and companies can mutually reinforce each other. For example, when one company sets an ambitious sustainability target, and reports this publicly, it can incentivise others in the sector to match or exceed it. This also has an effect at different levels of governance. University of Oxford Professor Thomas Hale describes it neatly: 

‘When national governments step up, it empowers cities and companies to take bolder actions. Conversely, when local and corporate players make ambitious moves, it eases the pathway for national policies.’

Over time, this peer-to-peer, entity-to-entity influence reinforces a virtuous cycle in which ambitious commitments become the norm, raising expectations and overall standards, and building resilience against backsliding.

World Resources Institute, United Nations Global Compact, and We Mean Business coalition (2018). The Ambition Loop: How business and government can advance policies that fast track zero-carbon economic growth. Working Paper, Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. 

Transparency is at the heart of credible climate action

Transparency is not a technical detail — it’s the foundation of credible climate action. Without transparency, corporate climate commitments risk becoming Schrödinger’s net zero target: simultaneously intact and undermined, existing in name but lacking in substance.

Opening the box — through clear, visible disclosure — is the only way to know whether a commitment actually holds. Without transparency, there can be no accountability. And without accountability, net zero targets lose their power to drive real-world change.

Helen Tatlow, Data Lead, the Net Zero Tracker