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As supply chains face fluctuating prices of energy and transportation, many manufacturers are searching for sustainable and ethical suppliers to reduce risk in the value chain.
At the same time, distributors and retailers are demanding comprehensive, rigorous carbon reporting from manufacturers.
Normative provides accurate carbon calculations throughout the supply chain, empowering manufacturers to minimize risk and comply with reporting requirements.
Manufacturing generates a significant amount of carbon, but accounting for those emissions is particularly challenging.
January 2026
CBAM entered its definitive phase, carbon certificates are now mandatory for steel, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, and hydrogen imports into the EU
60% – 80%
Of a manufacturer’s total carbon footprint sits in Scope 3 Category 1 (purchased goods and services) the category CSRD auditors scrutinise most
28%
Of companies currently calculate their full Scope 3 emissions — the gap is already visible in procurement decisions, investor conversations, and regulatory reviews.
For most of the last decade, carbon reporting in manufacturing was a disclosure exercise. Something the sustainability team produced once a year, reviewed by the board, and filed with CDP or the annual report. The number mattered, but it did not affect the order book.
That has changed on three fronts simultaneously.
CBAM is now live. Any manufacturer importing steel, iron, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity, or hydrogen into the EU owes carbon certificates priced at the EU ETS rate of €60 to €150 per tonne in 2026. The calculation requires documented, verified carbon intensity data for every imported product. Importers who cannot produce it default to the highest available carbon intensity estimate: the most expensive calculation possible. CBAM is not a sustainability disclosure. It is a tariff that appears on a finance team’s desk before it appears in any sustainability report.
PCF requests are in the sales inbox. B2B manufacturers are now receiving Product Carbon Footprint requests as a standard part of customer procurement. Companies with their own CSRD or SBTi obligations need to know the embedded carbon in the goods they buy, and they are awarding contracts accordingly.
CSRD makes Scope 3 mandatory. For in-scope manufacturers, that means the full upstream value chain: purchased raw materials, component suppliers, transport and waste, with a documented methodology that survives independent assurance. Only 28% of companies currently calculate their full Scope 3.
The manufacturers that have a traceable, auditable carbon number ready for every product, every entity, and every year are the ones winning the bids the others are losing.
Manufacturing carbon data is distributed across subsidiaries, production sites, and supplier records in formats that rarely match. Normative brings it together into a single, auditable inventory with no manual reconciliation between spreadsheets. Every number traces back to the entity, the emission factor, and the methodology that produced it.
Purchased goods and services is where manufacturing footprints live and where auditors ask the most questions. Every Normative calculation carries the emission factor version, the data source, and the methodology decision that produced it: documented as the inventory is built, not reconstructed before submission.
A PCF request requires bill of materials data, facility-level emission factors, upstream supplier data, and a methodology that holds up when the customer sends it to their own auditor. Normative builds PCFs from your BOM, with a GHG Protocol-certified advisor documenting the methodology and producing an output that answers the follow-up question before the customer asks it.
Hitachi Rail used Normative to extend their Scope 3 coverage from 10 to 13 percent of their supply chain to more than 90 percent. The step change came from systematic supplier data collection: mapping every significant spend category to an activity-based emission factor and building a calculation trail that could be independently reviewed. Their team described the result as the first time they had a Scope 3 number they could stand behind in an external report.
“Normative improved our measurement accuracy so we could better report our emissions.”
Jayne Higham Graduate Research Engineer at MTC
