Decarbonization Strategy & Custom Target Setting

Announcing a net-zero commitment takes one board resolution. Connecting it to the capital budget, the production plan and procurement criteria is a different job. A decarbonization roadmap is the document that makes that connection. It shows how a company gets from today's emissions to its target: through which measures, in what order, under whose responsibility and with what investment logic.

Alalëa's decarbonization consulting turns inventory data into engineering and financial decisions. This page describes what a roadmap contains, our method, the regulatory context in Türkiye and how the emphasis shifts by sector. It is written for manufacturers and exporters in Türkiye, for foreign groups with Turkish operations that need a site-level plan consistent with group targets, and for EU buyers who want to understand how their Turkish suppliers plan to cut emissions.

What a decarbonization roadmap contains

A good roadmap is more than a target sentence and a list of measures. It is made of components, each answering a specific question:

For a company setting targets under the SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard V2.0, most of these components are no longer optional. The standard requires every company to have a transition plan that covers the validated targets, the actions that will deliver the near-term target, critical assumptions and external dependencies, approved by the highest governance body. In other words, a net zero transition plan is part of the target package, not an add-on.

The Türkiye context: national targets, carbon prices and reporting

A company roadmap cannot be built in isolation from the national framework. In Türkiye that framework has several layers.

2053 net zero and the long-term strategy. Türkiye has announced a 2053 net-zero emissions target. The 2053 Long-Term Climate Strategy published by the Ministry contains 89 strategies across 18 sectors and 4 cross-cutting areas. Climate Law No. 7552, in force since 9 July 2025, brings mitigation and adaptation under a single legal framework in line with that goal.

The 2035 target (NDC 3.0). In its Second Nationally Determined Contribution, announced in September 2025 and submitted to the UN in November 2025, Türkiye aims to limit 2035 emissions to 643 million tonnes CO₂e, a reduction of 466 million tonnes CO₂e against the reference scenario. The reference scenario projects 2035 emissions of 1,109 million tonnes CO₂e. The target is economy-wide, covering all sectors and all greenhouse gases; the 2030 target in the previous NDC was 695 million tonnes CO₂e.

TR ETS. The Türkiye Emissions Trading System (TR ETS) Regulation entered into force on 27 August 2026 and covers installations that carry out Annex-1 activities with annual emissions above 50,000 tCO₂e. According to the Carbon Market Board decisions, the pilot period covers 2026 and 2027 emissions in the electricity, cement, iron and steel, aluminium and fertiliser sectors. 2026 is a reporting-only year; the price mechanism starts in 2027. Free allocation is 100 percent on a benchmark basis, and outside electricity the benchmark is the weighted average of installations in the sector. A plant less efficient than its sector average will be short of allowances and an efficient one will have a surplus, which means efficiency measures in the roadmap turn directly into a carbon balance for the first time. Our ETS readiness service covers the compliance side.

CBAM. The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism moved into its definitive period on 1 January 2026. According to the European Commission, the CBAM certificate price is calculated from the EU ETS auction price: a quarterly average for 2026 and a weekly average from 2027. The obligation sits with the EU importer, but the embedded emissions data that sets the cost comes from the Turkish producer. See our CBAM readiness service and the supplier perspective on CBAM preparation.

TSRS. TSRS 2 is the climate standard within the Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards (TSRS), issued by the Public Oversight, Accounting and Auditing Standards Authority (KGK) and updated in July 2026 to reflect the ISSB's amendments to IFRS S2. Companies in its scope explain how they plan to achieve their climate-related targets, including any transition plan, key assumptions and dependencies (paragraph 14). The roadmap is the substance of that disclosure.

Our method

1. Starting point: a source-level inventory

A roadmap is never better than its inventory. A "scope 1 total" is not enough to design a measure; you need to know how much fuel each boiler, furnace or vehicle fleet at each site consumes. We break the inventory down by site, by source and, where possible, by product, and identify the small number of hotspots that make up most of the emissions. In industry these are usually process heat, specific process emissions, purchased electricity and a few key raw materials. If your inventory is not at this level of detail yet, the work starts with our carbon footprint service.

2. Reference scenario

We build a curve showing where emissions would go without additional measures. Inputs include production growth, product mix, planned capacity investments, lines due to close and the expected carbon intensity of grid electricity. The difference between the target and the reference scenario is the abatement gap the roadmap must close. For a growing company, this gap can be substantially larger than the difference between today's emissions and the target.

3. Target ambition: SBTi-aligned or company-specific?

Choosing a target is a strategic decision with no single right answer. We assess the options with you:

For companies heading to the SBTi, target and roadmap are built in the same model. For the validation process itself, see our SBTi target setting service.

4. Abatement levers by scope

We build the measure catalogue starting from the hotspots, through site visits and with operations teams. Levers differ by scope:

Two principles shape this table. The first is the SBTi V2.0 implementation hierarchy: a company cannot rely on more indirect actions without showing that direct abatement in its own operations and value chain has been assessed and implemented where feasible. The second is the distinction between physical abatement and market instruments. Under the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, contractual instruments affect market-based scope 2, while the location-based result continues to be calculated with grid averages. SBTi V2.0 sets scope 2 target ambition against the location-based physical inventory. That is why certificate purchases appear as a separate line in our roadmaps. For background, see market-based and location-based scope 2.

The IEA's Net Zero Roadmap 2023 update finds that more than 80 percent of the reductions needed by 2030 can come from technologies available today: renewables, efficiency, methane abatement and electrification. The implication for a company roadmap is clear. The early years are weighted towards commercially proven measures, while technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture enter the timeline as pilot and feasibility steps.

5. Prioritisation with a marginal abatement cost curve

To compare measures in a common language we build a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC). Each measure is a block: its width shows annual abatement potential and its height shows the cost per tonne abated. Blocks are sorted from cheapest to most expensive; those below the zero line deliver net savings over their lifetime.

The curve's reliability depends on two details. We calculate potentials sequentially in order of implementation: efficiency first, then electrification on the remaining consumption, then renewable supply on the remaining electricity. Otherwise the same tonne is counted twice. And, as the CATF briefing note of June 2026 also stresses, a MACC on its own does not show interactions, co-benefits, upfront capital burden or costs that change over time. So we add criteria such as abatement size, upfront investment, technical maturity, lead time, lock-in risk and regulatory exposure to arrive at a multi-criteria prioritisation.

We often show costs as a relative index and against the company's own carbon price assumption. Measures below that horizontal line look economic when assessed at the company's carbon price.

6. Investment sequencing

The MACC ranking and the implementation calendar are not the same thing. When we build the investment plan we ask four questions:

• Which measures are no-regret? Negative-cost efficiency projects usually go into year one. When they have not been done yet, the reason is more often ownership and prioritisation than budget.
• When is equipment due for replacement? If a boiler or furnace will run for decades, the technology chosen at replacement can lock in emissions until the net-zero year. We align major transformation investments with the end of life of existing equipment.
• Which measures have long lead times? Measures that need a grid connection, permits, supplier development or a pilot start early so they deliver by the target year.
• What do we depend on? Grid capacity, renewable supply, supplier capacity and incentives. SBTi V2.0 asks companies to declare these dependencies per target, so we write them into the plan.

Linking the carbon price to investment appraisal is the key step here. For companies exposed to TR ETS and CBAM, an internal carbon price changes the economics of a measure directly. Our internal carbon pricing service covers how to set it up.

7. Governance and KPIs

What makes a roadmap deliverable is clear accountability. The structure we propose: a board-level owner, a project owner for every measure, quarterly progress reviews, a plan updated with the annual inventory and, where possible, climate targets linked to senior management performance indicators.

We tie each KPI's data source to the same audit trail as the inventory, because SBTi V2.0 assesses progress at the end of the cycle and, for Category A companies, requires that data to be independently assured.

How the emphasis shifts by sector

The method stays the same, but the centre of gravity of the roadmap moves with the sector.

In cement the regulatory frame is already concrete. Under the Long-Term Climate Strategy, the clinker ratio in public construction works and in tenders for cement-containing goods is capped at 0.80 between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2029, and at 0.75 from 1 January 2030. The strategy also targets a reduction of at least 10 percent in industrial energy intensity by 2053 compared with 2022. Because the TR ETS pilot sectors and the CBAM product groups overlap to a large extent, roadmaps in these sectors should handle both carbon prices on the same data infrastructure. In value chains with high land-related emissions, our FLAG emissions service joins the work.

Residual emissions: after abatement, not instead of it

The most common weakness in roadmaps is leaning on carbon credits or future removals to make the numbers work. Under the SBTi framework, carbon credits do not count towards reduction targets, and emissions remaining in the net-zero year can only be neutralised through carbon removal. We show residual emissions on a separate line and estimate removal needs by tonnage and year, but we do not make the success of the abatement plan depend on them. For the removal and credit side, see our carbon markets advisory and engineered versus nature-based carbon removal.

What determines the length of the work

Rather than quoting a single duration, we discuss the deciding factors at the outset:

• Whether the inventory is already broken down by source and site
• The number of sites and how many need a visit
• Whether engineering studies such as energy audits already exist
• The weight of scope 3 and the state of supplier data
• Whether the target will be prepared for SBTi validation in the same project
• When finance and investment planning teams can take part

Getting started

In a first conversation we review the state of your inventory, your hotspots, your regulatory exposure (TR ETS, CBAM, TSRS) and your customer requirements, and outline a scope of work tailored to your company. Contact us.