What do EU default values cost you — and what do you save with primary data.
EU default values deliberately overstate real emissions — every ton declared on defaults buys CBAM certificates you may not owe. Move imports to primary supplier data and the certificate bill drops. Simple.
What you'll need — the numbers behind your value case
These are the inputs behind the calculation. Real figures give the most accurate result — where a number isn't known, a best estimate works fine.
Which CBAM commodities you import (steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, hydrogen, electricity)
Tons per year per commodity
Share of imports declared with EU default values vs. primary supplier data
FTEs preparing CBAM declarations
Why it matters: these numbers define the size of the problem — and they are the basis your management will ask about anyway.
Your CBAM imports
size of the problem
Commodities in scope
Steel→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
t/yr
Aluminium→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
t/yr
Cement→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
t/yr
Fertilisers→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
t/yr
Hydrogen→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
t/yr
Electricity→ drives the certificate exposure & saving
MWh/yr
Data quality today
the lever
Default values vs. primary data
Defaults are deliberately conservative — they overstate real emissions, so you buy more certificates than your real footprint requires.
80%
osapiens collects primary emission data directly from your suppliers — most customers move the majority of volume to primary within the first year.
30%
Internal effort
Quarterly reports, supplier data chasing, default-value lookups.
FTE
Annual saving with osapiens
€0
Fill in your numbers on the left
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ROI year 1
1 · Size of the problem
Defaults are a penalty: EU default values deliberately overstate real emissions — the regulation rewards primary data, osapiens collects it.
Bound to the ETS: certificate prices track the EU ETS (~€75/t and structurally rising) — every year you wait, the same data gap costs more.
2 · Real value — your current spend
CBAM certificates at today's data quality
—
Internal team
—
Total annual cost of CBAM today—
Savings with osapiens
Biggest value driver
Certificates avoided through primary data
—
Internal effort automated (50%)
—
osapiens investment — AE fills in
Annual SaaS license
− €/yr
Net annual benefit (from year 2)—
CBAM certificates phase in from 2026 — figures show steady-state annual exposure as free allocation phases out to 2034.
3 · Other benefits — not priced in, but real
Audit-proof declarations. Every quarterly report traceable to supplier-level emission data — no default-value guesswork to defend.
Collected once, used three times. Supplier emission data feeds CBAM, corporate footprint (CCF) and product footprints (PCF) from one model.
Sourcing transparency. See real emission intensity per supplier — steel from Korea vs. Germany including its CBAM cost. Your buyers will use this daily.
Built for what's coming. Free allocation phases out to 2034 — your exposure grows every year. The earlier the data pipeline stands, the more it returns.
How this is calculated
Internal effort: FTE loaded cost €/year × 50% reduction through automated declarations & supplier data collection.
Certificate price: € per t CO₂e — bound to the EU ETS price (editable assumption).
Default overstatement: % by which EU default values overstate real supplier emissions (editable assumption).
Certificates today are blended: default share at full default intensity, primary share at real intensity = default × (1 − overstatement).
