CEO of SBTi Resigns Amid Carbon Offsetting Controversy

The CEO of the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), Luiz Amaral, has resigned for personal reasons amid controversy over carbon offsetting. Amaral, who joined in February 2022, will leave at the end of July. The interim CEO will be Chief Legal Officer Susan Jenny Her, with a search for a permanent CEO underway.

The chief executive of the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), the global non-profit at the centre of a public tussle over whether and how companies should be allowed to offset their carbon emissions, has resigned, it said on Tuesday. Luiz Amaral, who joined SBTi in February 2022, told the board he planned to step down for personal reasons, it said in a statement, adding he would leave at the end of July. Chief Legal Officer Susan Jenny Her will take over as interim CEO.

A search process for a permanent CEO has begun, it added. Citing the steps taken to turn SBTi "from an informal group into a structured and professional organization that can drive exponential growth in corporate target setting on a global scale", Amaral said a new leader was needed for its next phase.

The announcement follows criticism of Amaral and the SBTi leadership team from its staff and a group of climate experts after the board of trustees announced in April a plan to allow companies to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their supply chain with carbon credits. Supporters said the move was crucial to help encourage ambitious companies to decarbonise faster, while critics said it was more important to stop emitting in the first place, something offsetting could discourage.

After the original board announcement, a number of SBTi staff called for Amaral to resign, while various groups sent letters in support of both sides of the argument, which prompted the board to clarify its position. At the time of his resignation, the SBTi staff were in the process of analysing responses to a public consultation on the use of offsets that was undertaken last year, with the results due to be delivered in July. (Editing by Robert Harvey and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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