Broadening net-zero strategies to address multiple environmental impacts

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a conceptual framework and design principles for integrating non-carbon impacts into net-zero assessment, with testable hypotheses for empirical work on burden shifting.

🏢実務担当者:Offers actionable guardrails and compliance checks for corporate sustainability teams to strengthen net-zero strategy credibility beyond carbon accounting.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights the need for regulatory frameworks that require disclosure of offset reliance, supply-chain transparency, and non-carbon safeguards in net-zero pledges.

Abstract Net-zero greenhouse gas targets now shape climate policy worldwide, yet strategies assessed mainly through territorial carbon accounts can shift pressures onto biodiversity, water, land, materials, and communities through trade, supply chains, offsets, and technology choices. This Perspective argues that some portfolios that appear credible under carbon-only accounting cease to be decision-credible once residual emissions depend on low-integrity offsets, land-intensive removals, or burdens displaced beyond reporting boundaries. We define a broader net-zero approach as one that extends assessment across Scope 1-3 where supply-chain effects are material, complements territorial accounting with consumption-based perspectives where trade shifts burdens, and pairs emissions targets with auditable safeguards for non-carbon outcomes. Drawing on evidence from offsets, land-based removals, direct air capture, electrification, and traded deforestation risk, we show how burden shifting can arise when progress is judged through a single metric. Reported territorial gains can coincide with offshore emissions, ecosystem impacts, water stress, biodiversity loss, or material burdens that remain invisible in narrow appraisals. In response, we propose a guardrails-led decision pathway. The pathway begins with diagnosis using life-cycle and supply-chain assessment to identify hotspots across carbon and other environmental impacts. It then sets explicit guardrails, including biodiversity exclusions, water constraints, and offset integrity requirements, before selecting portfolios within those constraints. Multi-objective optimisation and multi-criteria decision analysis are positioned as tools for comparing feasible options, not for justifying trade-offs by default. We further outline five design principles with compliance checks that strengthen accountability through disclosure of demand-side action, land-use and biodiversity sensitivity, offset reliance, supply-chain transparency, and non-carbon appraisal criteria. Rapid emissions reduction remains essential, but broader net-zero strategies are needed when decarbonisation choices rely on globalised supply chains, land-based measures, or imported infrastructure. Credible net-zero planning, therefore, requires not only lower emissions but also transparent tests of integrity, burden shifting, and non-carbon limits.