A 10 tonne crane carries roughly 11 tonnes of CO2e in its steel before it moves a load, and the whole spread between 5.5 and 15 tonnes comes down to which mill rolled the plate. Here is how the number is built, why CBAM does not cover the crane itself, and what to ask for so two offers can be compared.
Ten tonnes of lifting capacity carries between 5.5 and 15 tonnes of CO2e before the crane ever moves a load, and that entire spread comes from which mill rolled the plate. CBAM does not cover cranes, which surprises most buyers who ask us about it. It does not stop their sustainability team from requesting the number, and it does not make the number any easier to produce when the enquiry lands on a Tuesday.
The carbon sits in five places on a machine from 1 to 20 tonnes: the steel, the hoist, the paint, the sea freight, and the electricity it will burn for the next twenty years. The awkward part is that the industry has no agreed template for this. A port crane can have an EPD. A 5 tonne workshop crane usually cannot, so both sides end up inventing a spreadsheet.
It is not one number. It is a set of buckets, and the buckets are defined by whichever standard you borrow. Cranes are machinery, so ISO 14067 is the closest product-level fit. Cranes also behave like construction products in the way they are bought and installed, so most European buyers default to EN 15804 module logic, the same framework used for structural steel. The two frameworks overlap heavily, which is why a mixed approach usually survives review.
Table 1 shows the six stages for a typical 10 tonne single girder machine. Read the last column first, because it explains why two suppliers can both be honest and still quote numbers that differ by a factor of three.
| Life cycle stage | Module | What it covers on a crane | Normally in a Chinese quotation? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw material and production | A1 to A3 | Plate, sections, castings, wire rope, motors, gearboxes, paint, plus the electricity and gas used in the workshop | Only if you ask, and only as an estimate |
| Transport to site | A4 | Road to port, sea freight, port handling, inland delivery | Almost never |
| Installation | A5 | Unloading, assembly at height, commissioning, mobile crane hire, site welding | No |
| Use | B1 to B7 | Electricity over the service life, spare parts, oil and rope replacement | No, but on a European grid this is usually the largest single row |
| End of life | C1 to C4 | Dismantling, transport to the shredder, processing, disposal of non-steel fractions | No |
| Beyond the boundary | D | Recycling credit for the steel that goes back into a furnace instead of ore | Rarely, and frequently misused when it is |
Two things follow from that table. First, A1 to A3 is the only row a manufacturer can change by choosing differently. Second, a supplier who reports only A1 to A3 is not hiding anything, he is reporting the one stage he has data for. The trouble starts when a buyer compares that partial number against a competitor's full life cycle figure.
Enormously, and it is the single biggest lever in the whole calculation. The World Steel Association's 2025 sustainability report puts the 2024 global average at 1.92 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of crude steel. That average hides a threefold spread between production routes, and the spread is not a rounding error you can design your way out of.
| Production route | CO2 intensity, 2024 | Including CH4, N2O and upstream mining | Energy intensity | What it means per kg of crane steel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast furnace, basic oxygen furnace | 2.34 t CO2 per t | 2.66 t CO2e per t | 23.88 GJ per t | 2.3 kg CO2e per kg |
| Global average, all routes | 1.92 t CO2 per t | 2.18 t CO2e per t | 20.95 GJ per t | 1.9 kg CO2e per kg |
| Direct reduced iron, electric arc | 1.47 t CO2 per t | 1.66 t CO2e per t | 23.30 GJ per t | 1.5 kg CO2e per kg |
| Scrap based, electric arc | 0.69 t CO2 per t | 0.71 t CO2e per t | 9.84 GJ per t | 0.7 kg CO2e per kg |
Source: World Steel Association, Sustainability Indicators Report 2025, 2024 data. The fourth and fifth columns are the ones to argue about in a tender, because they are the difference between a credible low carbon claim and a recycled content sticker.
Here is the uncomfortable part for anyone buying from China. Chinese crude steel is still overwhelmingly blast furnace output, and scrap based electric steel is a small share of national production. That is not a criticism of any individual mill, it is just what the national mix looks like. If a supplier tells you his crane uses 70 percent recycled steel, the question to ask is whether the mill actually ran an electric arc furnace on your heat, or whether scrap was charged into a converter. Those two things are not the same, and only one of them shows up in the intensity figure.
More than most people expect, and the amount tracks span far more than it tracks capacity. Published Chinese data sheets put a 5 tonne crane at 7.5 metres span at about 1.7 tonnes deadweight. The same 5 tonne crane at 22.5 metres is about 3 tonnes. Stretch it to 28.5 metres and you are looking at roughly 7 tonnes of steel to lift the same 5 tonnes. The load never changed. The bending moment did.
European light single girder ranges sit in a similar place but with less material in the girder, because the design assumes a lower duty class. One published 1 to 12.5 tonne range runs from 1,781 kg at 7.5 metres to 12,086 kg at 25.5 metres, with the trolley between 405 and 740 kg and total motor power between 4.31 and 4.67 kW. That last figure is worth pausing on. A modern FEM light single girder at 12.5 tonnes has less installed power than a domestic water heater circuit.
| Capacity | Span | Typical deadweight | Steel content at 72 to 78 percent | Trolley and hoist share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 t | 7.5 m | 1.0 to 1.5 t | 0.75 to 1.15 t | 25 to 35 percent |
| 3.2 t | 13.5 m | 2.2 to 2.9 t | 1.6 to 2.2 t | 15 to 22 percent |
| 5 t | 7.5 m | 1.7 t, published | 1.25 t | 28 to 36 percent |
| 5 t | 22.5 m | 3.0 t, published | 2.2 t | 16 to 22 percent |
| 5 t | 28.5 m | 7.0 t, published | 5.1 t | 7 to 11 percent |
| 10 t | 16.5 m | 5.5 to 7.0 t | 4.0 to 5.4 t | 9 to 14 percent |
| 12.5 t | 25.5 m | up to 12.1 t, published | 8.7 to 9.4 t | 5 to 8 percent |
| 20 t | 25.5 m | 13 to 16 t | 9.4 to 12.5 t | 7 to 11 percent |
Published figures are from Chinese manufacturer data sheets for standard single girder machines. Ranges are from our own order book and are planning figures, not a published statistic. Treat them as a sanity check on whatever number your supplier sends, because a 20 tonne crane that somehow weighs 6 tonnes is either a very clever design or a typo.
Let me run one machine all the way through, because the arithmetic is where most carbon sheets fall apart. Take a 10 tonne single girder at 16.5 metres span, A4 duty, 6,500 kg deadweight. Strip it down and the mass sits roughly like this.
| Component group | Mass | Steel equivalent | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Girder, end carriages, rail, walkway | 4,700 kg | 4,700 kg | Plate and sections, mostly S355 |
| Trolley frame, drum, rope, hook block | 700 kg | 600 kg | Wire rope is high carbon, higher intensity per kg |
| Motors, gearboxes, brake, panel, cable | 400 kg | 330 kg | Includes 35 to 45 kg of copper, which is copper intensive |
| Paint, fasteners, packaging | 100 kg | 80 kg | Timber crates and stretch film |
| Total | 6,500 kg | 5,710 kg | 88 percent of deadweight is steel equivalent |
Now apply the route intensities, add 6 percent for fabrication electricity, welding gas, blasting and paint, and you get the A1 to A3 figure. Then add sea freight from Shanghai to Rotterdam, roughly 20,000 km at 10 to 16 grams of CO2e per tonne kilometre for container and breakbulk. Table 4 is the result.
| Steel route | A1 to A3, including fabrication | A4 sea freight | Cradle to gate plus freight | Per tonne of capacity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blast furnace, basic oxygen | 13.4 t CO2e | 1.3 to 2.1 t | 14.7 to 15.5 t | 1.5 t CO2e |
| Global average mix | 11.0 t CO2e | 1.3 to 2.1 t | 12.3 to 13.1 t | 1.25 t CO2e |
| Direct reduced iron, electric arc | 8.4 t CO2e | 1.3 to 2.1 t | 9.7 to 10.5 t | 1.0 t CO2e |
| Scrap based, electric arc | 3.9 t CO2e | 1.3 to 2.1 t | 5.2 to 6.0 t | 0.55 t CO2e |
That table is a calculation, not a measurement. It uses the worldsteel route intensities, our own mass breakdown for a 10 tonne machine, and a published freight range. Any mill that gives you its own A1 to A3 figure should beat this estimate, and if it does not, ask why.
Two benchmarks come out of it, and both are useful in a tender. Per kilogram of crane, blast furnace steel lands around 2.1 kg CO2e and scrap based steel around 0.6 kg. Per tonne of lifting capacity, a 10 tonne crane carries 1.5 tonnes CO2e on the blast furnace route and 0.55 on the scrap route. If a supplier quotes a number outside those bands without an explanation, the number is not measured, it is guessed.
On a European grid, yes, over a full service life. This is the part that most carbon sheets quietly leave out, and leaving it out changes the story completely.
The European Environment Agency puts the greenhouse gas intensity of EU electricity generation at 206 grams CO2e per kWh in 2024, down 11 percent in one year and 41 percent in a decade. China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the National Bureau of Statistics publish a national average electricity factor of 0.5366 kg CO2 per kWh for 2022. Use whichever applies to where the machine will actually run, not where it was built.
| Machine | Installed power | Annual energy at A4 | 20 year CO2e, EU grid | 20 year CO2e, Chinese grid | Embodied, blast furnace |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 t at 16.5 m | 4.3 kW | 3,010 kWh | 12.4 t | 32.3 t | 7.7 t |
| 10 t at 16.5 m | 6.0 kW | 4,200 kWh | 17.3 t | 45.1 t | 13.4 t |
| 20 t at 25.5 m | 11.0 kW | 7,700 kWh | 31.7 t | 82.7 t | 24.0 t |
Assumptions: 35 percent demand factor on installed power, 2,000 operating hours a year, 20 year life. Both are planning figures from our own sizing practice, not published statistics. Change the hours and the whole table moves, which is exactly why the operating hours belong in the enquiry as a number.
The conclusion is a bit awkward for the low carbon sales pitch. On a European grid, twenty years of electricity is roughly 1.3 to 1.5 times the embodied carbon of a blast furnace crane, and around 2 to 3 times the embodied carbon of a scrap based one. On a Chinese or Indian grid it is three to six times. The steel matters, but the socket matters more.
Then the ratio drifts. European grids are decarbonising at about 4 percent a year, and a buyer with a power purchase agreement may already be at 50 grams per kWh. At that point the embodied share climbs past 60 percent, which is precisely why the question arrives in your inbox in 2026 and did not in 2016.
No. Cranes sit under HS 8426 in Chapter 84, and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism covers goods listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2023/956: iron and steel under Chapter 72, a set of specific Chapter 73 headings such as 7301 sheet piling and 7302 railway track material, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. Machinery is not on that list. A crane imported into Rotterdam does not trigger a CBAM declaration for the crane.
Three things still matter. The first is that if you ship the runway beams, rails or separate steel structures as their own customs lines, those lines can be CBAM goods even when the crane is not. The second is the threshold: importers bringing in more than 50 tonnes of CBAM goods per calendar year, aggregated across all CN codes, must hold authorised declarant status from 1 January 2026 and settle certificates. A single crane runway can cross 50 tonnes without anyone noticing. The third is that the buyer's sustainability team does not care about the customs code. They care about their own inventory.
| Item | Position in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Overhead crane, HS 8426 | Outside Annex I. No CBAM declaration for the machine itself |
| Runway beams, rails, separate steel structures | Can fall inside Annex I depending on the CN code. Declared by the importer |
| Threshold | 50 tonnes of CBAM goods per importer per calendar year, all CN codes added together |
| Certificate price, Q1 2026 | 75.36 EUR per tonne, published 7 April 2026 |
| Certificate price, Q2 2026 | 75.28 EUR per tonne, published 6 July 2026 |
| Certificate price, Q3 2026 | 82.32 EUR per tonne, published 5 October 2026 |
| Pricing frequency | Quarterly average of EU ETS auctions in 2026, weekly from 2027 |
| First declaration and surrender | 30 September 2027, covering imports made during 2026 |
| Carbon price already paid at origin | Deductible, if the importer can prove it was actually paid |
For context on the certificate price, analysts surveyed by Reuters at the end of July 2026 put EU allowances at an average of 79.97 EUR per tonne for 2026 and 89.13 EUR for 2027. Argus was running a central forecast near 78 EUR for the fourth quarter of 2026. The three published CBAM prices so far sit inside that band, and the Q3 jump to 82.32 EUR shows how quickly a quarterly average can move.
Because their reporting obligation does not care about Annex I. A European manufacturer above the CSRD thresholds has to disclose purchased goods and services emissions, which is Scope 3 category 1, and a crane bought from China lands in that line. The number may be small next to their steel and concrete, but it has to exist, and it has to survive an auditor asking where it came from.
Public tenders add a second reason. Several European infrastructure and utility buyers now score suppliers on documented product carbon data, and a supplier who cannot produce a sheet is marked down whether or not the category is formally required. The third reason is simpler and slightly cynical: procurement teams get asked for the number by their own management, they forward the request down the chain, and it arrives at a crane factory in Henan with no explanation attached.
There is also a structural gap here that nobody talks about. Konecranes publishes EPDs for its port equipment, including rubber tyred and rail mounted gantry cranes, and for its hoist ranges, with the C series chain hoist in 2023, the CXT rope hoist in 2024, the D series in 2025 and the S series low headroom hoist in 2026. There is no comparable EPD for a standard 5 to 20 tonne single girder bridge crane in this segment. So buyers copy a template from somewhere else, usually from structural steel, and apply it to a machine that does not quite fit. That is why two buyers can send you two entirely different spreadsheets for the same crane.
Six fields decide whether the document is usable. Everything else is detail you can ignore until a dispute starts.
| Field | What good looks like | How it gets abused |
|---|---|---|
| Declared unit | One tonne of structure, or one complete machine, stated once and used throughout | Per kilogram values compared against per machine values |
| Modules covered | A1 to A3 as a minimum, plus C1 to C4 and D, which is the EN 15804+A2 minimum for construction products | Quoting A1 to A3 only and calling it the life cycle figure |
| Indicator | GWP-fossil, stated separately from GWP-total and GWP-biogenic | Mixing total and fossil, which moves the number by 5 to 15 percent |
| Service life | Declared explicitly, usually 50 years for steel structures | Amortising a 50 year declaration over a 20 year crane life |
| Verification | ISO 14025 third party verified, with the auditor named | A self declared supplier sheet presented as an EPD |
| Data year and geography | Stated, for example Polish production 2024 with Ecoinvent 3.11 background data | European electricity data applied to a factory in Asia |
A real example of the format, from a 2026 declaration for overhead support structures in structural steel: EN 15804+A2 basis, ISO 14025 verification, A1 to A3 plus A4 to A5, C1 to C4 and D, declared unit one tonne, service life 50 years, Polish production data from 2024, Ecoinvent 3.11 background. That is what a usable document looks like, and none of it tells you whether the product is good. It only tells you the number is defined.
Module D deserves its own paragraph because it is the most abused field in the whole framework. It is the credit for steel that leaves the system at end of life and goes back into a furnace, reported as a negative number beyond the system boundary. For structural steel at an 85 percent end of life recycling rate, that credit is usually in the range of half a tonne to one tonne of CO2e per tonne of steel. It is legitimate under EN 15804. It is not legitimate to subtract it from A1 to A3 and present the remainder as the product footprint, and buyers do notice when a supplier tries.
Seven places, in rough order of how often I see them. None of these are exotic fraud. They are ordinary shortcuts that nobody checks until an auditor or a competitor's bid arrives.
| Shortcut | Effect on the reported number |
|---|---|
| Recycled content claimed without the melting route | Can cut the figure by 60 percent on paper while the steel was converter steel |
| Module D subtracted from A1 to A3 | Another 15 to 35 percent off, presented as a lower footprint rather than a separate credit |
| Freight left out | Hides 1.3 to 2.1 tonnes on an Asian to European route, which is 9 to 14 percent of the blast furnace total |
| Paint, blasting and packaging omitted | 2 to 4 percent, and more on a heavy protective system |
| Copper and aluminium ignored | Small in mass, but 40 kg of copper carries a footprint comparable to several hundred kg of plate |
| Renewable electricity claimed at the works | Only defensible with contractual instruments allocated to your order, not with a rooftop array sized for the office |
| Offsets netted off the product | A zero footprint claim that fails the first serious audit, since offsets are not a reduction in the product system |
Only two levers produce a large reduction, and both are design decisions rather than purchases. The rest are small, and one of the popular ones does nothing at all to embodied carbon.
| Lever | Effect on A1 to A3 | Cost signal | Practical note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scrap based electric steel instead of blast furnace | Down 64 to 71 percent on the steel | Mill premium, quote by quote | The only lever with a big number. Needs a mill certificate, not a brochure |
| Higher strength plate, S355 to S460 | Down 8 to 15 percent through lower deadweight | Small material premium, real design effort | Works best on spans over 15 m where bending governs |
| Girder depth and section optimisation | Down 5 to 10 percent | Engineering hours only | Costs headroom. Check the building before you promise it |
| Light crane system instead of a bridge crane | Down 40 to 60 percent in steel | Usually cheaper | Only for loads up to about 1 tonne. Not a like for like swap |
| Thinner protective coating system | Down 1 to 2 percent | Neutral | Ruin the corrosion life and you lose far more than you save |
| IE4 motors or variable frequency drives | Roughly zero on embodied carbon | Capital cost | Affects the use stage only. Worth it for control, not for the steel number |
Put a number on the biggest lever and the economics get interesting. Switching 5.7 tonnes of steel from blast furnace to scrap based electric saves about 9 tonnes of CO2e on a 10 tonne crane. If your mill quotes a premium of 60 to 150 USD per tonne for that route, the abatement costs somewhere between roughly 38 and 95 USD per tonne of CO2e. With EU allowances forecast near 80 EUR for 2026 and CBAM certificates already printed at 82.32 EUR for the third quarter, that is not a charitable gesture. It is the cheapest decarbonisation a European buyer can buy this year, which explains why the request keeps arriving.
That premium figure is indicative, taken from supplier conversations rather than a published index, and it moves with scrap prices. Ask your mill for the delta on the actual heat, not for a general statement about sustainability.
Ten lines. Send them with the technical specification and the answers become comparable, even between suppliers who use different templates.
| Request | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| 1. Deadweight of the complete machine, kg | The primary input. Without it nothing else can be checked |
| 2. Mass breakdown by component group | Catches a light quote that simply forgot the trolley |
| 3. Steel mill and production route, with certificate | Route drives the answer more than any design choice |
| 4. Mill's own GWP figure for A1 to A3, per tonne of steel, with its source | Turns an estimate into a traceable number |
| 5. Fabrication electricity in kWh and the grid factor used | Small, but it exposes whether anyone did the work |
| 6. Paint system, dry film thickness and mass | A C5 system is not the same number as a shop primer |
| 7. Packaging mass and material | Timber crates are real, and often 100 to 200 kg on a machine this size |
| 8. Transport mode, route and Incoterm | Freight is 9 to 14 percent of a blast furnace total to Europe |
| 9. Whether a product carbon sheet or EPD can be issued, at what cost and lead time | Three to six weeks is realistic. A same day answer is not |
| 10. Any carbon price already paid in the country of production | Deductible under CBAM if the importer can prove it |
The single girder cranes we build for European buyers are specified from these inputs, and where a customer needs a carbon sheet we build it from the mill certificates and the actual deadweight of the machine rather than from a general factor. That takes longer than sending a number, but it survives an audit, and an audit is usually what prompted the question.
One closing observation. The carbon conversation on overhead cranes is about fifteen years behind the one on structural steel, and the gap is not technical. The data exists at mill level. What is missing is an agreed template for a machine that is neither a building product nor a consumer good. Until somebody publishes one, the buyers who ask precise questions will get precise answers, and everyone else will keep comparing numbers that were never measuring the same thing.
Between about 5.5 and 15 tonnes of CO2e from cradle to the European port gate, depending almost entirely on the steel route. Blast furnace plate gives roughly 13.4 tonnes before freight. Scrap based electric steel gives roughly 3.9 tonnes for the same 6.5 tonne machine. Add 1.3 to 2.1 tonnes for sea freight from China to Rotterdam. If a supplier quotes under 4 tonnes without an electric arc furnace certificate behind it, the number is an estimate rather than a measurement. Our single girder crane range covers 1 to 20 tonnes and we quote the deadweight mass with every offer, because that is the number the rest of the calculation hangs on.
No. CBAM applies to goods listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2023/956, which covers iron and steel under Chapter 72, a set of Chapter 73 headings such as 7301 and 7302, aluminium, cement, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen. Cranes are HS 8426, Chapter 84, and are outside. Two things can still catch a project. Separate runway beams or steel structures shipped as their own customs lines may be CBAM goods, and the importer crosses the obligation once total CBAM goods exceed 50 tonnes in a calendar year. The first annual declaration and certificate surrender falls due on 30 September 2027 for 2026 imports.
Not a third party verified EPD, and nobody in this segment can, which is worth saying plainly. Published EPDs in the crane industry cover port equipment and hoist ranges, not a 5 to 20 tonne workshop bridge crane. What we can produce is a product carbon sheet built on EN 15804 module boundaries and the mill's own A1 to A3 values, with the mass breakdown and freight assumptions stated, typically in three to six weeks. That is enough for most CSRD purchased goods reporting and enough to answer a tender question. It is not the same document as a verified EPD, and a buyer who needs the verified version should plan for a longer programme.
Usually, yes, though not always in the way buyers expect. The steel route premium is the main cost and it scales with deadweight, so a long span machine with a light girder can cost less in total than a heavy short span machine on the same route. Design work on girder depth and steel grade is often the cheapest saving, because it reduces both the material bill and the carbon at once. Where the premium works out below the EU allowance price, and it often does, a buyer with a carbon target is better off paying it than buying allowances later.
Over a 20 year life on a European grid, electricity is larger, roughly 1.3 to 1.5 times the embodied carbon of a blast furnace crane and two to three times that of a scrap based one. On a Chinese or Indian grid the gap widens to three to six times. But the two numbers belong to different people. Electricity is the buyer's Scope 2 and their supplier choice fixes it. Embodied carbon is Scope 3 category 1, it arrives with the machine, and the only way to change it is to specify differently at the order stage. That is why the steel question, not the motor question, is the one worth arguing about.
Not for the crane itself, since HS 8426 is outside CBAM Annex I. Customs will ask for the usual commercial documentation and, for the machinery file, conformity with the Machinery Regulation that replaces the Directive from 20 January 2027. The carbon paperwork is a commercial and reporting matter between you and your customer, not a clearance condition. That distinction matters when a freight forwarder tells you a carbon certificate is required at the port. It usually is not, and the request has come from the buyer's sustainability team rather than from customs.
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