An EAC is not something outside the standard

Raise EACs and one reaction comes first: "is that recognised?" The SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 defines the category. ## Two definitions in the standard **Market instrument** — "a contractual arrangement between two or more parties that enables the creation, transfer, or claiming of GHG-related environmental attributes" (p.88). **Commodity certificate** — a "third-party-assured market instrument that represents the environmental attributes of an underlying good, product, or service" (p.82). What the industry calls an EAC is exactly this category. Not a separate thing sitting outside the standard, but **an instrument the standard has already made room for**. ## And conditions come with it Introducing its implementation hierarchy, the standard continues: those actions "may be supported by market instruments, including energy and commodity certificates based on different chain-of-custody models (e.g., mass balance, book-and-claim), **subject to the guardrails set out in the Standard**" (p.3). The same sentence is repeated in the summary (p.5). Two things matter. That it is allowed, and that there are conditions. The place to start a review is not "can we or can't we" but "what has to be in place". ## Who vouches for it The standard is clear about its own role too: "the SBTi does not seek to develop or replace certification schemes" (p.47). Instead it undertakes to develop **criteria and processes for recognising** third-party frameworks, standards and programmes. So there is one more thing to ask when reviewing a certificate — who issued it, and where does that body stand. --- This article expands one section of LCS EAC special report 1, *Do the Reductions You Buy Become Yours?* The full report works from the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 and SBTi Evidence Synthesis Report Part 2 as primary sources, with the printed page number given for every quotation.