CBAM for managing directors

As a managing director you do not need to know what a CN code is. You need to know whether the CBAM is a small matter or a large one, from when it hits cash, and whether anyone in the house owns it.

The leadership question

In practice the CBAM often falls between stools. Procurement takes it for a customs matter, customs for a finance matter, finance for an operational one. As long as no one clearly owns it, nothing happens, until a deadline or an authority query makes it visible. The most expensive version is almost always the one where no one was responsible.

What it really comes down to

For the management the CBAM reduces to a few questions. Are we in scope, and on what order of magnitude? What cost effect is to be expected for 2026 and 2027? Which deadlines are running, and what happens if we miss them? And: is our internal set-up enough to handle it? Have those answers and you can decide. Lack them and you hope.

What helps

The CBAM Decision File delivers exactly these answers, condensed into a one-page management summary. Your specialists read the rest of the file. You get the basis for a decision, not the detail. A fuller treatment specifically for leadership and finance sits on our page for management and the CFO.

To the page for management & CFO

Information on the CBAM is given to the best of our knowledge, as of June 2026, without guarantee. Dynamic values such as certificate prices, default values and deadlines can change. The applicable legal acts and the competent authorities are decisive. This article is not legal, tax or customs advice.