Preparing for CBAM: what EU exporters need to know

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) puts a carbon price on imports of carbon-intensive goods. If you export to the EU, understanding it is no longer optional — it directly affects your margins and market access.

Who is affected

CBAM currently covers six product groups: iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizers, hydrogen, and electricity. If your products fall in these categories, your EU importers must report the embedded emissions of every shipment — and, in the definitive period, pay for them.

Even if your sector is not directly in CBAM yet, the direction is clear: the EU is steadily extending carbon-disclosure obligations through CSRD and the Green Claims Directive. Automotive and textile suppliers already feel this through customer requirements and initiatives like Catena-X.

What data you actually need

For each product you need its embedded emissions — the Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of producing it, allocated per tonne of output. The hard part is that this often spans your own plant and your suppliers’ plants.

Why estimates are a liability

Most companies start with default values or spend-based estimates. These are accepted as a fallback, but they are conservative — usually higher than your real footprint — and they are not defensible under scrutiny. The more of your reporting that rests on verified, primary data, the lower both your reported emissions and your audit risk.

The practical path

1. Map which of your products are CBAM-covered.
2. Measure Scope 1 + 2 at the source, per product.
3. Collect primary data from suppliers for upstream emissions, not industry averages.
4. Keep an auditable trail — ideally one a regulator or customer can verify independently.

This is exactly what RecoChainAI is built for: capturing emissions at the source and anchoring them so your numbers can be proven, not just claimed.