Net zero needs a common language. This body for international standards is building one

Global momentum on net zero is picking up, but this push has an emerging weakness: a fractured global understanding of what net zero actually means. That might soon change.

The numbers are striking. Over 130 countries have made net zero commitments, and 78% of global GDP is covered by a national-level net zero target. CDP, a leading platform for sustainability reporting disclosure, has recorded a nine-fold increase in companies committing to net zero in just five years. Clearly, the ambition is there. What has, up until now, been missing is the architecture to make it credible, comparable and verifiable at scale.

The lack of a shared understanding, a shared framework – in boardrooms, in policy forums – has held back the move to net zero.

The spiderweb landscape of frameworks, initiatives and methodologies that has shaped corporate climate action over the past decade has been invaluable in building momentum. But it has also created fragmentation, multiple certification schemes, conflicting requirements and overlapping definitions of what ‘net zero’ actually means.

This fragmentation is costly and it erodes trust. That’s why what happened this week at London Climate Action Week is so significant.

Every year at London Climate Action Week feels like a moment of reckoning. The world's most committed climate practitioners gather in one city to take stock of where we are – and where we are falling short. It is a space for candour as much as for optimism. This year, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) brought something significant to that conversation.

ISO is the world’s largest developer and publisher of International Standards. ISO helps to develop and coordinate shared global standards across industries, including the climate sector.

Last week ISO opened the public consultation on ISO 14060: the world's first international, independently verifiable standard for net zero aligned organizations. It has been almost two years in the making and was built through one of the largest international working groups in ISO's history, involving hundreds of experts from business, government, academia and civil society across more than 170 countries.

ISO 14060 arrives at exactly the moment the market needs it most. It provides a globally consistent framework to help organizations develop credible and comprehensive net zero transition plans.

That’s important because a credible transition plan is fundamentally a business tool. It gives an organization clarity on its strategic direction, aligns its business model with the realities of the global economic transition, and equips it to manage what is coming: supply chain disruption, energy security shocks, evolving investor expectations and regulatory change. Having a shared standard upon which to base all this will improve efficiency and interoperability.

For policymakers, the value is different but equally significant. The standard is designed to be accessible and adaptable across sectors, sizes and geographies. An internationally agreed standard, developed through consensus across over 170 countries, provides the stable, interoperable foundation that national and regional regulatory regimes need to build on. The EU's CSRD transition planning requirements, the UK FCA's ISSB alignment ambitions and frameworks like the Transition Plan Taskforce are all pointing in the same direction. ISO 14060 provides the common ground that allows those efforts to cohere rather than diverge.

Lasting change rarely comes from a single initiative or a policy announcement. It happens when voluntary action, coordination, standards and regulation begin to reinforce one another. The standard is where that chain comes together.

ISO 14060 builds directly on ISO Net Zero Guidelines, launched at COP27 in 2022, developed with more than 1,200 experts from over 100 countries. Those guidelines moved net zero best practice into the international standards system for the first time. The standard now takes the next step: converting that best practice into something independently verifiable, scalable and recognized by markets and governments alike.

This is why it’s so significant that consultation for ISO 14060 opened ahead of London Climate Action Week. Two years ago, at the same event in 2024, ISO formally announced the beginning of this work. Now the next chapter is back to the same forum – a place where the urgency of climate action is felt so acutely and where the people who need this tool most are gathered in one place.

Consultation is critical for the success of any shared standard. Standards reflect the consensus of those who participate in shaping them, and the transition reflects the ambitions of those who commit to it. No standard succeeds without broad participation. The 12-week public consultation period is now open, and ISO is extending a direct invitation: to businesses, governments, researchers and civil society organizations, wherever they are in the world, to engage. People can contact their country’s national standards body via iso.org/members for more information.

The gap between net zero ambition and net zero action has been, for too long, a gap in credibility. ISO 14060 will not close it alone. But it lays the groundwork for a globally agreed, independently verifiable framework to bridge it. That is exactly the kind of stable ground rule the market has been asking for.

The architecture for the net zero transition is being built right now. This week in London, ISO is laying another significant piece of it – and asking the world to help shape what comes next.