Why Your Company's Climate Target Might Matter More Than Hitting It

Skeptics of corporate climate targets have a familiar complaint: what's the point of a goal a company might not hit? Research from Harvard Business School's Shirley Lu suggests the goal itself is doing more work than the skeptics assume.

Lu's research found that when a company announces an emissions target, its suppliers become measurably more likely to invest in climate-related products and services — a 1.9 percentage point increase after the first announcement, with more following a second. The effect spills over even to suppliers without a direct relationship to the company setting the target, as competitors respond to the same signal. Crucially, Lu found this holds even for less credible or purely aspirational targets. The target itself functions as a demand signal, whether or not the company ultimately delivers on it precisely.

For shipping, where a handful of major charterers, cargo owners, and shipping lines sit at the center of dense supplier networks — bunker suppliers, shipyards, engine manufacturers, port operators — this matters directly. A shipping company's public emissions target isn't just a compliance statement. It's a signal that can move an entire supplier ecosystem toward greener fuels, retrofits, and technology faster than regulation alone would.

For sustainability and procurement professionals in maritime — not just the C-suite — this reframes the job. Publishing and communicating a target clearly to your supply chain may matter as much as the operational plan behind it.

Recommendations:

• If your company has a climate target, communicate it explicitly and directly to suppliers, not only in a sustainability report.
• Don't wait for a perfect decarbonization plan before announcing a target — Lu's research suggests the signal itself starts moving the market.
• Coordinate target-setting with peer companies where possible; joint signals move suppliers faster than isolated ones.
• Track supplier response to your targets as a leading indicator of impact, not just emissions data years later.

Maritime sustainability professionals looking to compare notes on how targets are actually landing across the industry are welcome in the NextMariner community, where these conversations happen between people doing the work, not just setting the policy.