German railroad company Deutsche Bahn announced that its greenhouse gas reduction targets have been approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). Deutsche Bahn’s targets, including its goal to halve CO2e emissions by 2030 relative to 2006 levels and achieve climate neutrality by 2050, are considered to be in line with the 2°C Paris Agreement category.

SBTi was formed as a collaboration between CDP, World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), with the goal to establish science-based environmental target setting as a standard corporate practice. Achieving approval of targets by SBTi is a significant milestone for companies’ sustainability efforts, with many companies joining the initiative, but only slightly over 400 receiving approval globally to date.

According to Deutsche Bahn, the approval confirms that travel by train is active climate protection. SBTi lists the company’s targets as follows:

“Deutsche Bahn commits to reduce scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions 50% across transportation services on a per passenger-km, tonne-km, track-km, and per station basis by 2030 from a 2006 base year. Deutsche Bahn commits to reduce scope 3 emissions from freight transportation and bus services 50% per tonne-km and passenger-km by 2030 from a 2006 base year. Deutsche Bahn commits to reduce absolute scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions 100% by 2050 from a 2006 base year.”