The past two years have seen a growing sense that major corporations are watering down their climate commitments, with media reports — including here at Trellis — describing targets being made less ambitious, deadlines delayed and goals silently abandoned.
A study based on what the researchers say is the most comprehensive and up-to-date database of corporate net-zero commitments suggests the situation may not be so gloomy. The number of commitments has held steady, the study finds. And while there is clear evidence of backtracking in some areas, the situation is more nuanced than it might appear.
The results were drawn from the Net Zero Tracker, an independent research consortium based in Europe and the U.S. The data, which is assembled by hundreds of volunteers, covers close to 2,000 of the world’s largest publicly listed companies.
In the U.S., the share of companies with net-zero targets dropped a single percentage point to 51 percent compared to last year’s report, while the European Union saw its total increase by the same amount, to 85 percent. The bigger story was China, where net-zero coverage grew to 28 percent of tracked companies, up from 24 percent in 2025 and 18 percent the year before. Across all regions, the total remained roughly flat at 64 percent.
“There’s no massive withdrawal,” said Louise Bammel, a policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute in Germany, one of the partners in the tracker.
Backtracking prevalence
When Bammel and colleagues homed in on changes that the 50 largest companies had made to their targets, more specific evidence of backtracking emerged. (The study defines backtracking as making “mostly negative” changes to existing targets, such as narrowing the scope of emissions that are covered or changing a commitment to an aspiration.)
- Forty-three of the largest 50 companies have targets. In this group, 20 appear to be backtracking. The practice was most pronounced among financial institutions, with 11 of the 18 in the tracked group showing evidence of backtracking. The result won’t surprise sustainability experts in the sector: A key industry initiative, the Net Zero Banking Alliance, folded about a year ago after multiple members exited.
- Of the other companies with targets, nine showed evidence of backtracking: four oil and gas businesses, two technology firms, a semiconductor manufacturer, a retailer and a pharmaceutical company. Bammel declined to name the organizations.
- The most common forms of backtracking were keeping but weakening targets, followed by withdrawal of a goal. Together, the two account for nearly nine in 10 of the negative changes observed.
Reasons for backtracking
The study, one of the first to look at backtracking, also revealed challenges in assessing the intention behind a change.
Among the targets set by the top 50 companies, most were set in 2020 and 2021. Companies have learned a lot since then. When PepsiCo downgraded its goals in 2025, for instance, the company cited a lack of support from policymakers. Sometimes, Bammel noted, pushing back a target or otherwise weakening it shows that a company has looked hard at the key factors — emissions, mitigation options — and concluded that a delay is the only realistic option. “That shows that a company is actually taking its target seriously,” she said.
She contrasted that approach with the one taken by tech companies that are sticking with targets even as investments in data centers cause their emissions to rise. Microsoft and Google, for example, remain committed to targets with 2030 deadlines despite reporting annual emissions increases of 25 percent and 18 percent, respectively. “If you take a target seriously, you have to update it,” said Bammel.