Anchoring Corporate Climate Action: Credible Commitments and the Internal Governance of Private Standard‐Setters

ABSTRACT

Corporate climate commitments depend partly on the credibility of the institutions that define and validate them. This article examines the Science Based Targets initiative as a key private standard‐setter in polycentric climate governance. A mechanism‐based analysis informed by Basic Formal Ontology reconstructs SBTi's governance from documented entities, functions, authority relations and decision effects, examining how this structure operated during the 2024 Scope 3 controversy and subsequent standard revision. The Technical Council exercises technical approval and procedural gatekeeping. Scientific criteria, specialised advisory input and expectations of expert integrity support its deliberations but do not constitute an autonomous imperative constraint because the Board retains final appointment and adoption authority. This arrangement creates a structural vulnerability when scientific judgement, organisational strategy and stakeholder pressures diverge. By extending credible commitment theory from firms to standard‐setters, the article offers a framework for assessing the internal credibility of key institutions in polycentric climate governance.