How GLEC Supports CSRD Compliance in Logistics

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is the EU rule that requires large companies (see company size thresholds below) to report their environmental impact, including greenhouse gas emissions, in a standardized way. It has been amended twice since it was first adopted in 2022: through the Stop-the-Clock Directive (EU) 2025/794 in 2025, and through the Omnibus I Directive (EU) 2026/470, which entered into force on 18 March 2026.

For shippers and logistics service providers (LSPs) trying to plan ahead, the practical question is simpler than the regulatory history suggests: what does CSRD actually require for transport emissions, and how do you produce data that holds up.

The GLEC Framework is a calculation method developed by Smart Freight Centre, together with knowledge and industry partners, for measuring emissions from freight transport. It serves as the practical implementation guide for ISO 14083:2023, the international standard that covers GHG quantification for both freight and passenger transport chains. Together, they are the industry's answer to the second half of that question. This article explains what CSRD requires today, where transport emissions fit into the disclosure, and how GLEC v3.2, the current version of the framework, supports that reporting in practice.

CSRD in 2026: a narrower directive than most people remember

Two changes matter most for logistics: fewer companies are required to report, and the reporting itself has been streamlined.
  • Scope is smaller. Under Directive (EU) 2026/470, mandatory CSRD reporting now applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than €450 million in annual turnover, for financial years starting on or after 1 January 2027. According to the Council of the European Union, this removes the great majority of companies that would previously have been required to report. Listed small and medium-sized enterprises, previously due to report from 2027, are no longer required to report under CSRD.
  • Reporting itself is lighter. On 3 December 2025, EFRAG delivered its technical advice to the European Commission on a simplified version of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), cutting mandatory datapoints by 61 percent and removing all voluntary disclosures. Sector-specific standards, which would have included a dedicated set of transport rules, were removed from the plan entirely.
  • A new limit on data requests to smaller suppliers. Directive (EU) 2026/470 introduces a "value chain cap": reporting companies cannot request emissions data beyond the voluntary SME standard from suppliers with 1,000 employees or fewer, and those suppliers have the right to refuse requests that go beyond it. LSPs above the 1,000-employee threshold are not covered by this cap.

Where transport emissions sit in the disclosure

Companies reporting under CSRD disclose their greenhouse gas emissions across three categories, commonly called Scope 1, 2, and 3. Scope 1 covers emissions a company creates directly, for example from its own trucks. Scope 2 covers emissions from the energy it buys, like electricity. Scope 3 covers everything else in its value chain, including transport it pays other companies to provide, which is where most shippers' freight emissions fall.

Within Scope 3, the GHG Protocol's Technical Guidance defines two categories that carry transport activity:
The GLEC Framework was the foundational basis in developing the ISO 14083 standard, which was finalized in 2023. Now, the relationship between GLEC and ISO 14083 is simple: 
  • Category 4, upstream transportation and distribution: third-party transport of goods a company has purchased, plus outbound transport it pays for on the way to a customer.
  • Category 9, downstream transportation and distribution: transport of a company's sold goods that is paid for by the customer, not the seller.GLEC provides the practical methodology to achieve practical reporting
For example, a company that buys transport from three different trucking companies to move stock from its warehouse to its stores needs a way to combine emissions data from all three into one comparable Category 4 figure, even though each carrier may report its data differently.

The rules for this disclosure, found under ESRS E1-6, require these emissions to be reported in tonnes of CO2 equivalent, a standard unit that lets different greenhouse gases be compared on the same scale, without reducing the figure by any carbon credits or offsets purchased. Companies must also disclose the method used to calculate it.

GLEC and ISO 14083: the calculation method behind the disclosure

This is where GLEC and ISO 14083 come in. Think of ESRS E1-6 as the rule that says "report your transport emissions," while GLEC and ISO 14083 provide the recipe for actually calculating that number.

The GLEC Framework, now on version 3.2, is the practical implementation guide behind ISO 14083:2023, which ISO describes as establishing "a common methodology for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions arising from the operation of transport chains of passengers and freight." In practice, this gives companies:
  • A consistent unit of measurement. Emissions are calculated per tonne-kilometre, meaning per tonne of goods moved one kilometer, using well-to-wheel factors that count emissions from producing the fuel as well as burning it, across road, rail, sea, air, and inland waterways.CDP disclosures 
  • A structure that works across carriers. ISO 14083 organizes calculations around transport chain elements and hub operations rather than around vehicle ownership, so the same method works whether a company owns its trucks or buys transport from several outside carriers.
  • A data quality hierarchy. As the practical implementation guide for ISO 14083, GLEC ranks data from most to least precise: actual measured data from a specific shipment, average figures from a specific carrier or fleet, and industry default valuesused when nothing more specific is available.
This same calculation method also sits behind the EU's CountEmissionsEU Regulation, a separate rule about how transport emissions should be calculated, which points directly to ISO 14083 as its method. According to Smart Freight Centre's own GLEC FAQ, the GLEC Framework is also aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and the GHG Protocol.

What GLEC does not cover

It's worth being clear about what GLEC covers, so it's used alongside the right complementary tools rather than in place of them.
GLEC is purpose-built for transport and logistics emissions. It does not cover a company's own facilities (Scope 1), the electricity or energy it buys (Scope 2), or other Scope 3 categories such as the purchased goods and services outside their transport component.

Categories 1, 3, 4, and 9 all have a transport dimension and fall within GLEC's scope; it's the non-transport portions of Category 1 purchases and other Scope 3 categories that sit outside it.

It also has nothing to say about the parts of ESRS E1 that deal with a company's climate transition plan, its climate-related policies and targets, or the financial risk climate change poses to the business. Those all require separate work outside of GLEC.

It's also worth being specific about one point: in 2023, the European freight forwarding association CLECAT submitted feedback to the European Commission asking it to explicitly recognize ISO 14083 as the method for calculating and reporting transport emissions under the original ESRS delegated act, and to align ESRS with the CountEmissions EU proposal. The Commission did not incorporate that suggestion into the standard. GLEC and ISO 14083 are not named in the original ESRS text. (Whether the 2026 simplified ESRS revisits this point has not been independently confirmed for this article and should be checked against the final delegated act.) Their widespread use in logistics reporting comes from industry adoption rather than an explicit instruction in the regulation.

What this means in practice

  • For shippers, GLEC provides a single method to combine emissions data from many different carriers into one figure that satisfies the ESRS E1-6 requirement to disclose the calculation method used.
  • For LSPs, the value chain cap described above means that LSPs with 1,000 employees or fewer cannot be required to provide more emissions data than the voluntary SME standard specifies, and can decline requests beyond it. LSPs above that threshold are not covered by this cap and remain subject to whatever data their customers request under CSRD.
Related resources
For a closer look at how CountEmissionsEU, ISO 14083, and GLEC relate to each other, see How CountEmissionsEU Will Change Transport Reporting and SBTi, CDP & GLEC: How the Standards Interconnect for Logistics Emission Accounting.

For a closer look at building the data quality foundation behind any of these disclosures, Primary Data for Scope 3: Why It Matters in 2026 covers this in more detail.

To build hands-on calculation skills, SFC Academy's GLEC & ISO 14083 Calculation Workshop and Sustainable Logistics for Procurement Team course both address CSRD readiness directly.
Disclaimer: This article reflects the regulatory status as understood in July 2026. The simplified ESRS delegated act adopted 3 July 2026 was still within its Parliament and Council scrutiny window at the time of writing. Readers should confirm current status before relying on this article for compliance decisions.

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