The EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires covered companies to report on sustainability matters including, for many, Scope 3 emissions — the emissions generated across their value chain, which for an importer includes inbound freight and the manufacturing emissions embedded in the goods themselves, not just the company's own direct operations.
CSRD applies directly only to larger companies meeting specific size thresholds, but its effect reaches further down the supply chain because those larger companies need emissions data from their own suppliers and logistics providers to complete their own reporting — a mid-sized importer selling into a large CSRD-covered retailer may be asked to supply freight-related emissions data even though CSRD does not apply to the importer directly.
Ocean freight carries a materially lower carbon footprint per unit shipped than air freight, which is one more factor — alongside cost and speed — that can feed into mode-choice decisions once emissions reporting becomes a genuine business requirement rather than a voluntary disclosure.
We can provide shipment-level mode and routing data that supports an importer's own emissions reporting or a request from their downstream customer; the actual emissions calculation methodology and reporting format is typically set by the importer's own sustainability or compliance function, working from standards like the GHG Protocol.