How a Climate Target Strategy Identified Billions in Revenue at Risk

Climate Strategy Becomes a Revenue Risk

For manufacturers operating inside complex multinational supply chains, a climate target strategy is becoming a baseline condition of doing business. In the automotive industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other large buyers are under increasing pressure to report Scope 3 emissions. That pressure is being pushed down to suppliers in the form of procurement requirements, scorecards, and disclosure mandates. 

A manufacturer without validated emissions targets can lose ground in ways that threaten significant business disruption. Most crucially, customers may shift work to competitors who can demonstrate compliance. While Antea Group's client produced components to a high standard of quality, the absence of a formal climate strategy put them at risk of losing business due to compliance gaps. 

The client needed two things from an outside partner: a way to prioritize which sustainability actions would matter most to the business, and a business case credible enough to win leadership buy-in for the investment those actions would require.

Framing Changes the Conversation 

Sustainability initiatives often stall in the budgeting process because the case for action is framed in terms of compliance or reputation rather than financial exposure. Antea Group's Climate and Carbon Advisory Services team took a different approach: framing the entire assessment through the lens of business and revenue risk. 

This approach translates a sustainability conversation into the language that finance and executive leadership use to make decisions. Rather than making the case for sustainability investment because it’s the right thing to do, a “nice-to-have,” or even customers’ preference, the assessment answered a more direct question: How much revenue is at risk if we do nothing?

Quantifying Risk and Setting Targets

Antea Group structured the engagement into three integrated tasks, each building on the last. 

Task 1: Benchmarking Against Industry Peers 

Antea Group evaluated voluntary disclosures, GHG targets, and decarbonization strategies across nine of the client's industry peers.  

The findings were unambiguous: all nine peers had near-term targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and six of the nine had net-zero targets spanning Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. The client had no equivalent validated targets in place, putting them at a clear competitive disadvantage in an industry where buyers increasingly screen suppliers on this criterion. 

Task 2: Evaluating Customer Requirements and Quantifying Revenue at Risk 

The team assessed climate-related supplier requirements from the client's highest-revenue customers, representing 45% of annual revenue. Nine key features emerged as requirements across the customer base, including Scope 3 measurement and targets, site-level carbon data, clean electricity, and science-based targets. 

Mapping the client's actual capabilities against these nine features surfaced specific gaps, and Antea Group quantified what each gap meant in dollar terms, customer by customer. The results ranged from $443M (2.6% of revenue) at the low end to $1.37B (8.0% of revenue) at the high end, depending on the individual customer relationship.  

Task 3: Designing a Science-Aligned Target Strategy 

With the competitive and financial landscape established, Antea Group applied its greenhouse gas accounting and SBTi expertise to evaluate the client's Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions inventories and model viable reduction pathways. 

The team presented three ambition levels—minimum, recommended, and aggressive—each defined by a near-term reduction target and a long-term net-zero date. Antea Group's recommended pathway used 2019 as its baseline year, and set a 65% reduction target by 2032, followed by a net-zero target of 2045. That recommendation was designed to strike a balance: ambitious enough to be credible against peer targets and to satisfy customer scorecards, and realistic enough to be achievable given the client's actual emissions trajectory. 

The modeling showed that the recommended near-term target would reduce emissions by 57% against a business-as-usual forecast by 2032, and by 93% against business-as-usual by the 2045 net-zero target date.

The engagement gave the client a business-focused foundation for climate target-setting: a clear picture of where it stood against peers, a financial case for closing specific gaps, and a target pathway aligned with current SBTi criteria. 

Key results: 

• Benchmarking confirmed 100% of evaluated peers held SBTi-verified targets, establishing the competitive baseline the client needed to meet 
• Customer analysis identified up to $5.4B (32%) of client revenue tied to sustainability capability gaps 
• Antea Group delivered priority actions to close the gaps, with target-setting identified as the first priority, not only because of the benchmarking findings, but because it was the most efficient solution for closing a number of gaps simultaneously 
• The recommended Scope 1 and 2 target strategy—65% reduction by 2032, net-zero by 2045—gave the client a credible, science-aligned pathway built on its own historical emissions data 

The client's Executive Director of ESG commended the work, noting that it was well structured and gave the team a clear sense of direction for moving forward.

What does "revenue at risk" mean in a climate strategy context? Revenue at risk refers to the portion of a company's revenue tied to customers or contracts that could be lost, reduced, or renegotiated if the company fails to meet specific climate or sustainability requirements those customers have set as conditions of doing business. 

Why would a manufacturer need a climate target strategy if it already meets quality and delivery standards? Large buyers, particularly in automotive and other complex supply chains, increasingly screen suppliers on emissions performance to meet their own Scope 3 reporting obligations. A supplier without validated climate targets can lose business to a competitor that has them, regardless of product quality. 

What is an SBTi-validated target? An SBTi-validated target is an emissions reduction goal that has been reviewed and approved by the Science Based Targets initiative as consistent with the level of decarbonization required to limit global warming in line with climate science. 

How does a near-term differ from a long-term emissions target? A near-term emissions target focuses on reductions over the next 5-10 years and is designed to drive immediate action and accountability. A long-term emissions target looks further ahead (typically to 2050 or earlier) and reflects the level of emissions reduction needed to align with a net-zero or deep decarbonization pathway. 

What is the difference between Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions? Scope 1 covers direct emissions from a company's own operations, Scope 2 covers emissions from purchased electricity and energy, and Scope 3 covers all other indirect emissions across a company's supply chain and value chain, including suppliers and customers.