What changed in 2026
Since January 1, 2026, the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is in its definitive phase. Your EU importers now accumulate a financial liability on every tonne you ship — and they will settle it with CBAM certificates.
Here is the part that lands on you, the exporter: if your product arrives without verified emissions data, your importer pays the default value. For cement, the default for most countries is set near the top of the global emissions range — deliberately — and carries a rising markup. Default values aren't an estimate. They are a penalty for missing paperwork.
Exporters who deliver clean, installation-level, verifiable data become the cheap supplier. Exporters who don't become the expensive one — and expensive suppliers get replaced.
What are default values costing you?
Cement & clinker, direct emissions. Move the sliders — the math is the EU's, the overpayment is yours.
We speak your process, not just your paperwork.
CBAM math turns on parameters that live on the plant floor — the clinker ratio, the furnace route, the smelt source. That's where we start.
Cement & clinker
Your importers are asking for emissions data now — in a format most plants have never produced. We work in Spanish, directly with your plant team.
- The clinker-to-cement ratio decides everything — and it's the number plants most often get wrong.
- Blended cements hold a hidden advantage: slag, fly ash, and gypsum carry zero embedded emissions under CBAM. High-additive producers are structurally cheaper — most don't know it.
- Both direct and indirect emissions count — kiln fuel and electricity source both move your bill.
- Scope check in one call: four categories; ready-mix and concrete products are out.
Iron & steel
EU defaults price US steel dirty. Your furnace says otherwise — verified data is how it gets heard.
- Route sets the stakes: EAF scrap-based runs ≈ 0.3–0.7 tCO₂/t crude; integrated BF-BOF ≈ 1.8–2.3.
- Precursors cascade — a finished tube inherits crude steel, pig iron, sintered ore. Bought-in precursors need your supplier's data: the step where most exporters break.
- Scope is wider than most think: nearly all of Chapter 72, plus tubes, structures, and fasteners in 73.
Aluminum
The one CBAM sector where perfluorocarbons count — and where recycled content changes the bill most.
- Primary vs secondary is the whole game: smelting ≈ 1.5–1.7 tCO₂e/t direct plus PFCs; remelt ≈ 0.3–0.6.
- Recycled-content producers running on default values are overpaying badly.
- ~180 downstream steel & aluminum products are proposed to enter scope from 2028 — if you're near the line, check now.
Also covered: nitrogen fertilizers — the only sector with N₂O monitoring — and hydrogen, which has no de-minimis exemption.
Three ways in — start with ten days.
The fastest way to know your real number.
- Embedded-emissions calculation under the EU methodology — two product SKUs
- Default-vs-actual cost comparison at current EU carbon prices
- A data-gap roadmap: exactly what's missing and where to find it
- An importer-ready summary you can send to your EU buyers
One upload, every buyer.
Full installation-level emissions dataset built to the EU's prescribed methodology, formatted for the CBAM Operators Portal and third-party verification. One properly structured upload serves every EU buyer you have.
Compliance while you run the plant.
A monthly retainer: importer data requests handled, portal submissions maintained, quarterly regulatory monitoring — including UK CBAM, arriving January 2027, which puts a second set of obligations on many of the same shipments.
Why Northbound
Engineers, not slide decks.
20+ years designing and installing heavy industrial systems, including hands-on cement plant and preheater tower construction. We know where your data lives because we've stood next to the equipment that produces it.
Built for the mid-market.
Fixed fees, senior attention, 10-day turnarounds. Not a six-figure Big Four engagement staffed by first-year analysts.
Bilingual by design.
Your plant team works in Spanish. Your EU importer gets English. Nothing is lost between them.
Fair questions
CBAM is legally the importer's obligation. Why is it my problem?
Can't we just let them use default values?
Are you an accredited verifier?
How fast is the pilot?
We ship less than 50 tonnes of covered goods to the EU per year.
Is my product even in scope?
We make blended cement — does that change anything?
Do you also handle fertilizer or hydrogen?
Founded by an engineer who has stood inside the kiln line.
Northbound Carbon was founded by Dani Belen, a mechanical engineer with more than 20 years in heavy industry — including years of hands-on cement plant installation work, from kiln lines to preheater towers. Based in New Jersey, serving clients across the Americas and EU time zones, in English and Spanish.
We started Northbound because CBAM's real burden isn't calculation — it's turning messy plant records into structured, verifiable documentation. That's an engineering problem. So we treat it like one.
Find out what default values are costing you.
One 20-minute call. If CBAM isn't a real cost for you, we'll tell you that too.
→Book a 20-minute call