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2025/07/04
Driving ASUS Group's Net-Zero Transition with Science-Based Targets
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The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) states in its report State of the Global Climate 2024 that key climate-change indicators, including atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration, sea level and ocean-heat content, have all reached record highs. The report further indicates that in 2024 the global mean near-surface temperature was almost 1.5 °C above the pre-industrial baseline, marking the highest value recorded in 175 years of instrumental observations. This signifies that the worsening trend of global warming has not significantly changed.
To accelerate corporate progress toward Net-Zero GHG emissions and ensure that decarbonization efforts remain consistent with global climate objectives, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the World Resources Institute (WRI), and partner organizations jointly launched the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2015. The initiative assists companies in establishing emission reduction targets grounded in climate science, thereby aligning their reduction pathways with the 《Paris Agreement》 goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
SBTi Reduction Pathway Methodologies and Committed Companies
The SBTi adopts the IPCC quantified "Global Carbon Budget"—the remaining cumulative emissions compatible with limiting warming to 1.5 °C, as its overarching framework. It then integrates the quantitative mitigation scenarios and pathways developed by the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), translating economy-wide targets into enterprise-level decarbonization methodologies that are both actionable and verifiable. This methodology has the advantage of simultaneously accounting for socio-economic drivers such as population growth, technological advancement, and economic development when projecting future emission trajectories and abatement potential, thereby ensuring that corporate emission-reduction targets remain fully aligned with global climate objectives.
The SBTi develops sector-specific reduction pathways. For technology homogeneous industries such as steel, cement and agriculture, it applies International Energy Agency (IEA) sector pathways and setting intensity targets under the Sectoral Decarbonization Approach (SDA). For other sectors, it draws on net-zero scenarios from Absolute Contraction Approach(ACA), which according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the IEA.
The SBTi provides rigorous standards, calculation tools and guidance that enable companies across all sectors to set specific, measurable and transparent emission reduction targets aligned with the 1.5 °C pathway for limiting global average temperature rise by 2050.
As of June 2025, 10,828 companies worldwide have committed to setting Science Based Targets; 8,136 of these companies already have validated the targets, and 1,857 have committed to achieve Net-Zero emissions by 2050.
ASUS has had its Net-Zero target validated by the SBTi for carbon emission reduction and initiated its climate actions in three stages
In accordance with the SBTi framework, ASUS group’s goal setting aligned with the scope of its most recent consolidated financial statement. By following SBTi 1.5°C Reduction Pathway. The Near-Term targets commit to reducing 50% of absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 2030, as well as reducing 30% of absolute Scope 3 emissions related to purchased goods and services and use of sold products. In 2025, ASUS had a more ambitious SBT Net-Zero target approved, commits to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 90%, also commits to reduce absolute scope 3 GHG emissions 90% by 2050.
After defining its SBT-aligned reduction pathway, ASUS is guiding its entire value chain toward net-zero through a three-stage strategy: (1) enhancing energy efficiency, (2) expanding the utilization of renewable energy, and (3) reducing residual emissions by innovative technologies to lead the value chain to Net Zero. Concurrently, ASUS is deeply committed to data-driven sustainability and digital transformation, leading to the development of the ASUS Carbon Data Management Platform, which tracks and manages emission reduction performance across our operating centers, subsidiaries, and suppliers.
- Enhancing Energy Efficiency
- Low-carbon products: Adopting environmentally friendly material and enhancing product energy efficiency.
- Key Supplier Carbon Reduction Engagement and Counseling Program: Develop supplier classification management to identify critical suppliers and set SBT targets.
- Expanding the utilization of renewable energy (RE100 Pathway)
- Improving Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Supply Agreement at the Headquarters: Built up the ISO 50001 Energy management system, adopting energy-efficiency improvement initiatives, and transition electricity procurement to renewable sources.
- Energy transition at overseas operations centers and procurement of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs): install the solar photovoltaic systems, sign low-carbon power purchase agreements, and procure RECs.
- Investing in Innovative carbon reduction technologies: Monitoring the progress of innovative carbon reduction technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen energy, and other clean technologies.
The SBTi has released a new draft of its Corporate Net-Zero Standard, expanding corporate decarbonization requirements and strengthening transparency
Since the release of the first edition of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard in 2021, companies worldwide have increasingly aligned with science-based reduction. As the volume of validated targets has grown, several structural loopholes have come to light. A minority of enterprises have exploited the flexibility in organizational-boundary exclusions to remove major, difficult-to-abate emission sources, such as the high-carbon-intensity blast furnaces and kilns in the cement sector, from their inventories, while others have leaned on Scope 2 measures, like renewable electricity procurement, to mask insufficient abatement of Scope 1 emissions. To close these loopholes, the SBTi issued the draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0 in 2025, translating the “mitigation first, removals supplementary” principle into quantitative rules and introducing more stringent validation requirements.
In its draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0, the SBTi tightens target-setting rules: after a Near-Term Science-based target is validated, companies must submit to a progress assessment every five years until the Net-Zero year, and any shortfall must be accompanied by a root-cause analysis and corrective plan; a new five-year interim target must then be filed for renewal validation within twelve months of each period’s close. Inventories and targets can no longer exclude any Scope 1 or Scope 2 emission source; firms must set a standalone Scope 1 reduction target plus a removal target for residual emissions, and separate Scope 2 reduction targets calculated with both the market-based and location-based methods, thereby sharpening the focus on operational reduction. For Scope 3, whenever a category surpasses the significance threshold or an activity qualifies as emissions-intensive, a distinct reduction target is compulsory, preventing companies from addressing only their largest sources while neglecting secondary ones.
ASUS leverages its core capabilities to progressively implement the updated requirements of the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard
ASUS continuously monitors the latest requirements in the draft Corporate Net-Zero Standard v2.0, dynamically adjusts its carbon-removal strategy, and actively investing in innovative carbon reduction technologies and carbon-removal partners to build a resilient, forward-looking net-zero investment portfolio. In addition to reduce emissions within its own operations and value chain, ASUS is also proactively contributing to global warming mitigation through beyond value chain emissions reductions and is securing high-quality carbon credits in advance to neutralize the residual emissions that cannot be eliminated by 2050.
ASUS, referencing the SBTi's BVCM (Beyond Value Chain Mitigation) guidance, evaluates carbon reduction projects outside of its value chain. The carbon credit projects that ASUS invests in or purchases must meet ASUS's internal carbon credit criteria, which are established based on reports and principles from professional organizations such as the IPCC, the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), and other reputable NGO resources, to avoid greenwashing risks.
ASUS is steadfast in realizing its net-zero commitment and is propelling a twin transformation driven by sustainability and digitalization. Guided by science-based reduction pathways, the company embeds decarbonize thinking across product design and collaborates with subsidiaries and suppliers to create a low-carbon value chain together. Building on its core capabilities, ASUS explores product and energy innovation, integrates external resources, and harnesses data-driven insights to optimize enterprise-wide performance. By using digitized data and scientific management practices to support sustainable value creation through core capabilities, ASUS employs robust carbon management to mitigate climate-related financial impacts and convert potential carbon costs into competitive advantage, thereby lowering operational risk and enhancing product differentiation in the marketplace.
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