Beyond Your Fence Line: Making Sense of EACs, SAF Certificates and SBTi's New Activity Pools

Navigating book-and-claim instruments and Scope 3 flexibility credibly, under the new Corporate Net-Zero Standard.

For most companies, the emissions that matter most sit outside their own operations — in the electricity grid, in supply chains, in the fuel burned by planes they’ve never chartered. Energy Attribute Certificates, Sustainable Aviation Fuel certificates, and carbon credits all exist to let organisations claim progress on exactly this kind of emissions they don’t physically control. The question is no longer whether these instruments are allowed — SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 has explicitly opened the door to them through new “activity pools” for Scope 3. It’s whether your approach would hold up under real scrutiny.

Join Anthesis for a practical, in-person breakfast session on what these instruments actually are, where they overlap and where they don’t, and how to build a defensible claims strategy rather than a collection of certificates bought to fill a gap.

Why now?

SBTi’s Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0 has introduced more flexibility for Scope 3 target-setting, including activity pools that allow companies to count certain market-based instruments (like EACs and SAF certificates) toward their reduction claims. That’s welcome news for companies with limited supply chain leverage. But it also raises the bar: stakeholders are increasingly asking, not just “do you have certificates?” but “are they additional, are they high-quality, and do they actually represent the claim you’re making?”

If your organisation is buying renewable energy certificates, exploring SAF as part of a corporate travel or logistics footprint, or relying on carbon credits to bridge the gap to your target, it’s worth asking: do you understand what each instrument actually proves? Could you defend your claims stack to a sceptical stakeholder? And is it built to hold up as SBTi’s rules and market expectations keep evolving?

Who should attend?

Sustainability professionals, procurement and travel managers, finance teams, and anyone responsible for Scope 2 or Scope 3 strategy, SBTi target-setting, or corporate claims and disclosures. Whether you’re just starting to explore these instruments or already have a portfolio of certificates and credits, this session will sharpen how you evaluate and communicate them.

What we’ll cover:

• The instrument landscape explained: what EACs, SAF certificates, and carbon credits each actually certify — and where people commonly conflate them.
• SBTi’s activity pools explained: what’s now permitted under the Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0, what isn’t, and how to use this flexibility without overclaiming
• Quality and additionality: how to evaluate whether an instrument represents a real, defensible claim rather than a paper transaction
• SAF and business travel: what book-and-claim means in practice for flight-related emissions, and how it fits into a broader Scope 3 strategy
• Building a credible claims stack: sequencing reduction, market-based instruments, and removals so your story holds together under scrutiny