CBAM is live. Your EU customers now need your emissions data.
If you export steel, aluminium, cement or fertilisers from the Western Balkans to the EU, your buyers must account for the carbon embedded in your goods — and they can only do that with data from you.
The definitive CBAM regime started. The transitional (reporting-only) phase is over.
EU importers begin buying CBAM certificates covering their 2026 imports.
Importers below 50 tonnes of covered goods per year are exempt (2025 Omnibus Regulation).
Annual CBAM declarations are due by 30 September of the year following import.
What CBAM means for a Balkan exporter
The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism puts a carbon price on certain goods imported into the EU, mirroring what EU producers pay under the EU Emissions Trading System. The covered sectors are iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen and electricity — with the deepest impact on metal and cement exporters in the Western Balkans, where grid electricity is carbon-intensive.
The legal obligations sit with your EU customer, the importer. They must report the embedded emissions of what they buy from you and, from February 2027, surrender certificates priced against the EU ETS. That distinction matters less than it sounds: an importer's CBAM cost is calculated from your production data. You are now part of their compliance chain, whether you chose to be or not.
What your EU customer will ask for
Requests vary in format — a spreadsheet template, a questionnaire, sometimes a portal — but they converge on the same substance:
- Embedded emissions per unit of product, calculated at installation level — not a company-wide average.
- The underlying activity data: production volumes, fuel consumption by type, electricity consumption, and process emissions where relevant (clinker, steel, aluminium).
- The emission factors used, including the grid factor for your electricity — and where those factors came from.
- Documentation of the calculation — enough that their verifier can follow how each number was produced.
- Consistency over time. One-off estimates raise questions; monthly records that reconcile with invoices don't.
What "good enough" looks like
You don't need a sustainability department. You need a disciplined record of energy and production data, calculated with documented factors, that a third party could re-trace. In practice that means: monthly entries backed by invoices and meter readings, factors that are appropriate for your country rather than EU averages, and a report where every figure can be traced back to its inputs. That standard — traceability, not polish — is what separates data your customer can use from data they'll discard in favour of defaults.
How Karbon360 fits in
Karbon360 is carbon accounting infrastructure built for companies in the Western Balkans — designed so the numbers you hand to an EU customer hold up to scrutiny.
Factors that match your grid
Calculations use locally accurate emission factors — including national grid factors — instead of international averages that misstate your Scope 2 by multiples.
Built for CBAM sectors
Stationary and mobile combustion plus process emissions for cement and clinker, lime, glass, ceramics, steel and aluminium — the exact categories CBAM goods depend on.
Every figure is traceable
Each record stores the factor used, its version, and a server-side recomputation. When your customer's verifier asks where a number came from, you can show them.
Frequently asked questions
The legal obligations fall on EU importers, not directly on non-EU producers. But importers can only comply with data from their suppliers. If you export covered goods to the EU, your customers need embedded-emissions data from you — and suppliers who can't provide it become harder to buy from.
The definitive regime started on 1 January 2026 — it's in force today. Importers start purchasing certificates for their 2026 imports on 1 February 2027, and annual declarations are due by 30 September of the year after import.
Your customer falls back on default values set by the European Commission, which are generally conservative — your goods look more carbon-intensive than they are, and cost more once certificates are priced in. Credible actual data is a direct cost advantage you can offer your buyer.
Yes — since the October 2025 Omnibus Regulation, importers whose annual net imports of covered goods stay under 50 tonnes are exempt entirely. Note this applies to your customer's import volume, not your production.
No — declarations are filed by the EU importer. What Karbon360 does is make you the supplier whose data an importer can actually use: installation-level energy and production records, documented factors, and a calculation trace behind every figure.
Has a customer already asked?
Tell us your sector and what was requested. We'll tell you concretely what you need to have in place — and what to send them.
Talk to our team