A new set of EU guidance documents has been published to help companies comply with the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) as it moves into its “definitive period,”
CBAM is an EU policy that applies to imports of certain carbon-intensive goods and requires monitoring, reporting and financial obligations for importers, as set out in the CBAM Regulation and related secondary legislation, the European Commission noted in a statement on Friday.
The guidance is intended for a range of stakeholders, with a focus on non-EU operators that produce CBAM goods, as well as authorised CBAM declarants and verifiers who check emissions data.
The series consists of four general guidance documents and six sector-specific guides, covering cement, hydrogen, fertilisers, iron and steel, aluminium, and electricity.
The general guides include an introduction to CBAM concepts, a “quick guide” for non-EU operators, guidance on calculating “embedded emissions” — the greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing goods — and guidance on calculating an adjustment linked to “free allocation” under the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS).
Sector guides and where to find them
The sector-specific guidance documents provide overviews of production processes, value chains and monitoring and reporting considerations for each covered sector, and include worked examples, the Commission said.
Businesses are told they need to be prepared for verification of their emissions data and have processes in place to report actual emissions.
The full series is available on the European Commission’s CBAM website under “CBAM legislation and guidance.”
