The 2026 State of Freight Emissions Report

Global freight CO₂ emissions in 2025 reached approximately 3.95 Gt CO₂e, up 6.1% from 2020. Three of the four modes are still growing in absolute emissions despite per-tonne-kilometre efficiency gains. This is the third annual State of Freight Emissions Report from the EcoFreight team; the data behind every chart is on the methodology page and the underlying CSV is offered on request to journalists and researchers.

Executive Summary

Methodology Note

We compiled this report from public datasets — IMO Fourth GHG Study 2020 with our own 2020-2025 extrapolation, IEA Transport annual tracking (2025 release), ICCT working papers on container shipping and aviation, EEA Transport and Environment Report 2025, UIC rail statistics, and Smart Freight Centre's GLEC Framework v3.2. Where IEA and IMO disagree on 2020 baselines we used IMO for maritime and IEA for everything else, with the seam documented in the dataset endnotes. All numbers are well-to-wake (WTW) unless otherwise marked, on a CO₂e basis with GWP-100 from IPCC AR6. Methodology version is GLEC Framework v3.2, aligned with ISO 14083:2023. Known limitations: belly-cargo emissions allocation is sensitive to passenger-versus-cargo cost-allocation choice; air-cargo radiative forcing is not included; 2025 figures are our forecasts where final IEA Transport for 2025 publishes in late 2026.

1. The Numbers, Mode by Mode

Headline first, narrative second. The four-mode summary table below is the centrepiece. Reading it left to right: how big the mode is in absolute terms, what one tonne moved one kilometre actually costs in CO₂, what direction the per-tkm number moved over five years, and what single lever is doing the most work behind that number.

The total adds to 3,950 Mt CO₂e (3.95 Gt). The four named modes plus the pipeline/inland-waterway bucket account for the freight slice of total transport, which itself is roughly 16% of global GHG (IPCC AR6 Working Group III).

Road freight: the elephant nobody fights

Road is the biggest mode and the slowest to move. The 2.05 Gt figure for 2025 covers articulated HGVs, rigid trucks, light commercial vehicles, and last-mile vans on a freight basis (passenger transport is separate). It is up 7.8% on 2020 because tonne-kilometres grew 9.4% and per-tkm efficiency only improved 1.5%. The 78 g/tkm GLEC v3.2 default for a heavy goods vehicle assumes a fully-laden 40-tonne articulated tractor-trailer running at typical European load factors. Operator-side numbers we see in audited 3PL data range from 52 g/tkm (well-managed, full-truckload, modern Euro VI fleet) to 165 g/tkm (last-mile diesel vans, 40% load factor).

The single biggest driver is load factor. A truck running at 80% utilisation halves its per-tkm number against the same truck at 40%. Fuel switching helps — Euro VI engines are 4-5% better on bunker than Euro V on the same duty cycle — but the load-factor lever swamps everything else. The IEA's 2025 transport tracking confirms that average European HGV load factor has been stuck around 67% for a decade.

Sea freight: efficiency wins, volume wins more

Ocean freight gets the headlines for decarbonisation because the absolute numbers are large and the regulatory pressure is concentrated. The 1,055 Mt 2025 figure is from extrapolating the IMO Fourth GHG Study 2020 baseline of 1,022 Mt (international shipping) using ICCT's container-shipping tracking and AIS-driven fleet activity data. International maritime CO₂ was 1,056 Mt in 2018 per the Fourth Study; by 2020 it was around 1,022 Mt (covid dip); our 2025 estimate at 1,055 Mt has it roughly back to 2018 levels in absolute terms despite an 11% per-tkm efficiency improvement.

That intensity drop is real and worth crediting. Three things drove it: slow-steaming policy as a structural response to IMO CII requirements (vessels running 12-14 knots rather than 18-20 on Asia-Europe), fleet renewal toward larger ULCV-class vessels which carry more containers per litre of bunker, and a small but growing dual-fuel LNG share. The ICCT's analysis pegs container-shipping per-TEU emissions in 2021 already 8% below 2018; our 2025 read takes the trend forward by another 3 percentage points. The 8.15 g/tkm GLEC v3.2 container default we use in worked examples is at the midpoint of a 5.4 g/tkm (ULCV at full utilisation) to 14.2 g/tkm (Panamax-class on partial backhaul) operator range.

The biggest emission driver remains the bunker mix. Roughly 84% of 2025 global ocean tonne-kilometres still ran on HFO with scrubber, VLSFO post-IMO 2020 sulphur cap, or marine gasoil. LNG is around 5% of new-build orderbook tonnes but well under 2% of operating fleet capacity. Methanol-capable vessels are around 0.4% of operating capacity (Maersk's 2024-2026 fleet leads the count). Ammonia-capable: essentially zero in commercial service in 2025.

Air cargo: small share, biggest per-tkm number

Air freight is a small fraction of total tonne-kilometres but a disproportionate share of emissions because aviation Jet A-1 burn per tonne-kilometre is roughly two orders of magnitude higher than ocean. The 310 Mt 2025 figure splits into dedicated freighter aircraft (~215 Mt) and belly cargo on passenger aircraft (~95 Mt allocated on a mass+volume basis per IATA RP 1678). That allocation choice is methodologically contested — value-based allocation produces a different split — and we flag it explicitly in the underlying dataset.

The +14.6% growth on 2020 is almost entirely e-commerce express. Dedicated B777F and B747-8F freighters added capacity into Asia-North America and Asia-Europe lanes for cross-border parcel demand. The GLEC v3.2 default of 602 g/tkm for long-haul cargo masks a wide spread: a modern 777F on a 12,000 km lane at 80% utilisation gets to 415 g/tkm; an older 747-400 freighter on a shorter sector with partial load runs over 1,200 g/tkm. SAF blend, where present, lowers WTW by the substitution share — 1% SAF blend reduces WTW by about 0.7% to 0.8% allowing for the SAF feedstock variance. Most cargo carriers were under 0.4% SAF blend in 2025.

Rail: the only mode with absolute reductions

Rail freight 2025 emissions are 215 Mt, down from 230 Mt in 2020. The mechanism is electrification: when a rail corridor moves from diesel traction to overhead electric on a grid with rising renewable share, the per-tkm number drops by the difference between diesel WTW (~85 g/tkm for a mixed-grade diesel freight train) and the local-grid WTW (which on a 60% renewable grid like northern Europe is around 12-18 g/tkm). The UIC reports European rail freight net-tkm electrification share at 62% in 2024, up from 54% in 2019. North American freight remains diesel-dominant, which is why the global rail average sits at 22 g/tkm — pulled up by long-haul US diesel hauling commodities.

Where rail is taking modal-shift share from road (the EU's TEN-T corridor work, the Rail Freight Corridor regulation 913/2010 follow-on), the per-tkm benefit is roughly 4x — a 78 g/tkm road movement becomes a 22 g/tkm rail movement, all else equal. Empty mileage and the road-leg at either end eat into that, but the comparison still favours rail decisively on lanes longer than about 600 km.

2. The Regulatory Map of 2026

A lot changed at midnight on 1 January 2026 and more is coming. Here is the schedule, with deadline specifics and penalty arithmetic.

EU CBAM definitive period started 1 January 2026

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism transition period closed 31 December 2025; the definitive period began the next day. Importers of cement, iron and steel, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity, and hydrogen must register as authorised CBAM declarants and surrender CBAM certificates priced against the weekly EUA auction average for the embedded emissions of every shipment over the EUR 150 per-shipment threshold. Embedded emissions include the transport leg from the production site to the EU customs frontier — which is where the freight-emissions data the importer asks of carriers and exporters comes in. Default values for the transport component are deliberately conservative, so they are more expensive than verified actuals. First definitive-period declarations cover calendar 2026 and are due by 31 May 2027. The legal basis is Regulation (EU) 2023/956 with Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1773. We covered the carrier-side data the EU importer will ask for in more detail in the CBAM 2026 explainer.

EU ETS Maritime — second year, 50% of non-EU voyage emissions in scope

EU ETS Maritime began phasing in on 1 January 2024 for ships above 5,000 GT, covering 100% of intra-EU voyage emissions and 50% of voyages between an EU and non-EU port. The phase-in schedule that mattered in 2025 (40% surrender) gave way on 1 January 2026 to the 70% surrender requirement; 2027 is 100%. For a typical Maersk-class 20,000 TEU container ship running Shanghai-Rotterdam with 27 tonnes of fuel per day at sea, the EUA cost on the EU-leg half of the voyage at EUR 78 per tonne CO₂ is approximately EUR 195,000 per round-trip voyage at the 70% surrender level. That is real money. Shipping lines have either passed the cost through as an Emissions Trading System Surcharge on the bill of lading or absorbed it on long-term contracts.

FuelEU Maritime — first full reporting cycle

FuelEU Maritime (Regulation EU 2023/1805) came into force on 1 January 2025 and 2026 is the first full reporting cycle. The mechanism is a well-to-wake greenhouse gas intensity standard for fuels used by ships above 5,000 GT calling at EU ports: a 2% reduction target against a 2020 baseline of 91.16 g CO₂e/MJ in 2025-2029, stepping to 6% in 2030-2034 and 14.5% in 2035-2039. Operators who exceed the target generate compliance balance; those who fall short owe a penalty of EUR 2,400 per tonne of VLSFO-equivalent shortfall, with the penalty compounding for repeated non-compliance. The pooling mechanism — where overperforming and underperforming operators can swap compliance — is the policy lever the Commission expects to drive low-GHG fuel uptake.

California SB 253 — first reporting delayed but tracking

California's Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act (SB 253) requires US companies with revenue over USD 1 billion doing business in California to report Scope 1 and 2 emissions starting 2026 (for fiscal 2025) and Scope 3 starting 2027 (for fiscal 2026). The California Air Resources Board missed its original July 2025 rulemaking deadline; implementing regulations were finalised in early 2026 with the first Scope 1/2 reports now due by 31 December 2026. Scope 3 — which is where freight emissions sit (Category 4: upstream transportation and distribution) — is on a 1 January 2027 first-reporting timeline. SB 253 covers an estimated 5,400 companies. The penalty structure is more lenient than EU CSRD — administrative fines up to USD 500,000 — but the disclosure rule itself is what drives the data demand.

CSRD second-wave companies — year-two reporters

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive's first cohort (large public-interest companies above 500 employees) reported on fiscal 2024 in 2025. The 2026 cycle adds the second wave: all large EU companies above 250 employees, with reports due in 2026 covering fiscal 2025. The Omnibus simplification proposal from late 2025 deferred parts of the third-wave SME requirement, but the second-wave companies are firmly in scope. The ESRS E1 climate standard requires Scope 3 Category 4 (upstream freight) disclosure where material — and for most importers and manufacturers it is material. The GLEC v3.2 methodology and ISO 14083 data quality tier disclosure are the de facto compliant route for this; we cover the field-by-field mapping in the Scope 3 Category 4 CDP guide.

IMO MEPC 82 outcomes and the 2030/2040 strategy

MEPC 82 in October 2024 approved the framework for a global GHG fuel intensity standard and an emissions pricing mechanism, both expected to enter force in 2027. MEPC 83 in early 2025 progressed the detail; the formal adoption sat at MEPC 84 in autumn 2025 (just before the printing deadline for this report). The IMO 2023 strategy targets a 20% emissions reduction by 2030 (striving for 30%) and 70% by 2040 (striving for 80%) against a 2008 baseline, with net-zero around 2050. The 2030 milestone we discuss below in the outlook section: most independent analysts (UMAS, ICCT, T&E) put the IMO trajectory at -5% to -12% versus 2008 by 2030 on the existing measures, well short of the 20% striving line. The fuel intensity mechanism the IMO adopts in 2027 is what would close the gap, if at all.

3. What's Working in Decarbonisation

And what is not. We try to be honest here, because the gap between press release and operating reality is wide in freight decarbonisation. Each item below has a confirmed-savings number where we have one, and a caveat where the trade-off matters.

Slow steaming — 10 to 15% confirmed savings on container ships

Container ships dropping average speed from 18-20 knots to 12-14 knots cut fuel burn cubically: a 30% speed reduction yields roughly 50-60% fuel saving on the propulsion plant alone, which translates to around 10-15% lower per-tonne-kilometre emissions across a typical voyage once auxiliary loads, port time, and the additional voyage days are accounted for. ICCT's 2022 update on container shipping found average operational speeds had already dropped 15% from 2007 peaks. The trade-off is delivery time and the need for additional sailings to maintain weekly service strings — which means more ships in service. On balance, slow steaming has been a structural success for the industry's per-tkm number, but it works less well for the climate question if all it does is keep older, less-efficient vessels in fleet rotation.

LNG bunkers — 5 to 7% WTW saving, with the methane-slip caveat

LNG dual-fuel container vessels (the CMA CGM Jacques Saade series, the latest Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd dual-fuel orderbook) cut WTW emissions by 5-7% against an equivalent VLSFO baseline, after accounting for the lower carbon-per-MJ of methane and the WTT emissions of LNG production. The caveat is methane slip — unburnt methane escaping from low-pressure dual-fuel engines, which the IMO MEPC 80 documents and ICCT's 2024 methane-slip work pegged at 1.7% to 3.2% of fuel mass on Otto-cycle 2-stroke engines. Methane is a far more potent GHG than CO₂ (GWP-100 of 27.9, GWP-20 of 81.2). Once methane slip is factored in at the higher end of the range, the WTW savings narrow to roughly 2-3%; in the worst case methane-slip estimates from older engines, LNG can come out worse than VLSFO on a GWP-20 basis. The technology is improving — high-pressure 2-stroke engines have far less slip — but the operational fleet in 2025 is mixed.

Methanol vessels — Maersk fleet 2024-2026, real numbers

Maersk took delivery of its first methanol-capable vessel, Laura Maersk, in September 2023, followed by a series of 18 dual-fuel methanol-capable container vessels through 2024-2026. When running on green methanol (renewable-derived), the WTW emission factor drops roughly 70-90% against a VLSFO baseline depending on the methanol feedstock. When running on grey methanol (natural-gas-derived), the WTW factor is roughly equivalent to VLSFO. The fleet ran predominantly on conventional bunker through 2024-2025 because green methanol supply was constrained; Maersk has been signing offtakes that bring green methanol availability up through 2026-2028. The visible operational data on the first dual-fuel voyage from Korea to Copenhagen showed roughly 67% lower well-to-wake emissions on the methanol-fuel leg — credible, audited, but at very small scale.

SAF supply — 0.3% of global jet fuel; ReFuelEU mandates 2%/6%/63%

Sustainable aviation fuel was approximately 0.3% of global jet fuel demand in 2025 (IATA SAF tracking). It is supply-constrained, not demand-constrained: every litre produced is sold. The EU's ReFuelEU Aviation regulation took effect 1 January 2025 with a 2% SAF blending mandate on EU-departing flights, stepping to 6% in 2030, 20% in 2035, and 63% by 2050. The mandate captures cargo flights too. For freight, this means a small but ratcheting reduction in air-cargo WTW factors: a 2% SAF blend reduces WTW by roughly 1.5%; the 6% step in 2030 is closer to 4.5%. The capacity question — whether the world can actually produce 63% of jet fuel as SAF by 2050 — is genuinely open, and the cost differential against fossil Jet A-1 is still 2-4x at the gate.

Electric trucks — Tesla Semi and Mercedes eActros 600 — range, TCO

The Tesla Semi entered limited commercial service in late 2023 with deliveries to PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, and a small set of fleet operators. Tesla claims 500 miles (805 km) range fully laden; independent fleet data from PepsiCo's deployed Semis showed real-world range around 380-450 miles (610-725 km) depending on payload and grade. The Mercedes-Benz eActros 600 launched commercially in 2024 with a 500 km range and a 600 kWh battery; Daimler reported around 1,500 units in fleet operator hands by Q1 2026, primarily in DACH and Benelux. On total cost of ownership, both trucks now beat diesel on routes under 400 km with high utilisation if depot charging is available — the depot-charging asterisk is decisive. The grid carbon-intensity question matters: on a German grid at roughly 380 g CO₂/kWh in 2025, an eActros at 1.1 kWh/km consumes about 418 g CO₂/km equivalent, against roughly 800 g CO₂/km for a diesel HGV — close to half. On a Polish grid at 650 g/kWh the gap narrows considerably.

Modal shift to rail — real EU corridor numbers

The European Union's Rail Freight Corridor regulation 913/2010 set up nine international rail freight corridors with the explicit goal of moving long-distance road tonne-kilometres onto rail. UIC's 2024 report on the corridors found year-on-year tonne-kilometre growth of 2.8% on RFC-2 (North Sea-Mediterranean) and 4.1% on RFC-6 (Mediterranean) over 2019-2024. The combined per-tkm emission saving against the equivalent road journey is around 4x (78 g/tkm road versus 19 g/tkm electrified rail on those grids). Modal shift remains slow in absolute terms — rail's share of EU inland freight tonne-kilometres rose from 17% to 18.4% over 2018-2024 — but the corridor-specific numbers are encouraging.

Carbon offsets — Yash's honest take

A real plain-English statement: most voluntary carbon market credits sold against freight emissions in 2024-2025 did not survive Berkeley Carbon Trading Project scrutiny. The Project's Voluntary Registry Offsets Database review, updated December 2024, found systematic over-crediting in roughly 80% of cookstove projects, around 50% of REDD+ forestry credits, and a smaller but significant share of renewable energy credits in markets where the renewables were already commercially viable. The freight-offset market has been a major buyer of low-quality credits because the per-tonne CO₂ price was low and the marketing wins were quick. The result has been a 38% drop in voluntary freight-offset dollar volume during 2025 as buyers became more careful.

Where offsets still defend themselves on quality: well-designed durable removal credits (direct air capture, biochar, enhanced rock weathering) at the USD 200-450 per tonne range — these are real, additional, permanent, but at a price point where most freight operators cannot use them at scale. The honest answer is that operational decarbonisation has to do most of the work; offsets are at best a small marginal layer, and even there, only with credit-by-credit due diligence on additionality, permanence, and leakage. The default rule is to treat any cheap freight offset as suspect until proven otherwise.

4. A 2030 Outlook

Forecasts are guesses, but forecasts with their assumptions written down are useful guesses. Here is Mayur's view, on the record.

The IMO 30% by 2030 striving line — probably missed

The IMO's 2023 revised GHG strategy commits the industry to at least 20% reduction in international shipping emissions by 2030 versus a 2008 baseline, striving for 30%. From where the data sat at end of 2025 — international maritime emissions roughly flat against 2008 in absolute terms, intensity down maybe 11% — the at-least 20% line requires absolute emissions to fall ~22% from 2025 levels in five years. The IMO's measures-on-the-books (CII, EEXI, the carbon levy framework still being negotiated) plausibly deliver 5 to 12 percentage points of that. Independent analysis from UMAS, ICCT, and T&E consistently lands in that 5-12% range on existing measures. The remaining 8-15 percentage points need either the new IMO fuel intensity standard biting hard from 2027 or material green-fuel uptake — and green-fuel availability is the harder constraint.

Our honest read: the 20% striving line is achievable if the 2027 IMO mechanism is calibrated aggressively. The 30% striving line is not. We expect MEPC 84/85 outcomes in 2025-2026 to determine the gap; if the levy lands at USD 100+ per tonne CO₂ with a meaningful fuel-standard ratchet, the industry hits 18-22% by 2030. If the levy is closer to the USD 25-40 range under discussion, the gap to 20% stays open. Bookmark this paragraph for the 2027 edition.

SBTi-aligned shippers covering Scope 3 Category 4 — climbing

Companies with SBTi-validated targets that explicitly cover Scope 3 Category 4 (upstream transportation and distribution) numbered 142 in January 2024. As of March 2026, the figure is 367 — a 2.6x increase. This still represents under 8% of Forbes Global 2000 companies with material freight footprints. Our forecast: by January 2030 the SBTi Cat 4-covered universe will be roughly 1,500-1,800 companies, driven primarily by CSRD's enforcement biting in the second and third compliance cycles. The implication for freight operators is that primary-data-grade emissions reporting from carriers is going to be table stakes for any shipper contract negotiation by 2027-2028. Carriers running on annual PDF reports from spend-based calculators will lose tender business.

CBAM second-wave goods — likely 2027 additions

The European Commission's CBAM review timetable points to additional product categories being added in 2027. The expected first additions are downstream steel and aluminium products (finished goods that embed in-scope materials), some refined chemicals, and possibly polymers. Cement-derivative products are another candidate. Plastics — heavy chemical-feedstock plastics in particular — were on the original scope list but were deferred to the review. The longer-horizon expansion question is whether the Commission extends to glass and pulp/paper, which has been floated but not formally committed. We forecast a definite expansion in 2027, with the precise list crystallising at the EU Council level in late 2026. The implication for freight carriers serving EU-import lanes is that the CBAM-relevant import volume roughly doubles in 2027, with the carrier-side data demand following it.

Data quality tier shift — Tier 2 as the default by 2030

ISO 14083's three data quality tiers — primary (metered actual), secondary (carrier or lane average), default (GLEC sector factor) — are tier-graded for a reason. In 2025, the majority of audited Scope 3 Category 4 disclosures used GLEC defaults (Tier 3 in some practitioner shorthand). By 2030, our expectation is that for any audited disclosure tied to CSRD, SBTi, or CDP, Tier 2 will be the de facto floor, with Tier 1 the goal on managed long-haul lanes. The mechanism driving this is straightforward: auditors are getting better at reading freight emissions methodology and they are increasingly unwilling to certify Tier 3 disclosures on lanes where the carrier could plausibly supply Tier 2 data. EcoFreight's API exposes the tier per leg explicitly to support this — we expect more vendors to do the same as the market matures.

What This Means for Your Operation

Specific actions, by audience. No general motivational language — three things each, the things we would do in your seat.

For freight forwarders — three things to do this quarter

1. Audit your per-shipment WTW reporting against ISO 14083. If your customer-facing freight emissions report does not name a methodology version (GLEC v3.2, EN 16258, ICAO RP 1678 for air), name a data-quality tier per leg, and break out mode-by-mode, you are going to lose a tender on data quality grounds within the next two contract cycles. Fix the report template first; everything else flows from it.
2. Identify your top 5 EU-import lanes and confirm CBAM exposure. If you handle steel, aluminium, cement, fertiliser, hydrogen, or electricity flows into the EU, your customer's CBAM declaration depends on your per-shipment freight emissions. Run a default-versus-actual cost delta for each lane; the difference is the business case for upgrading the data.
3. Set a Tier 2 reporting roadmap for your top lanes. Pick the 10 lanes with the highest annual tonne-kilometres. Set a goal of moving each from Tier 3 (GLEC default) to Tier 2 (carrier-specific fleet average) by end of fiscal 2027. The data work — fuel-burn collection, vehicle-class allocation, route normalisation — is unglamorous but compounds.

For shippers — three things to ask your forwarder

1. "Show me your per-leg WTW emissions and the ISO 14083 data-quality tier for each leg." A forwarder who can answer this in writing on a per-shipment basis is reporting at audit-grade. A forwarder who can only give you an annual blended PDF is two years behind the curve. There is no middle ground that will satisfy a CSRD or CDP audit cycle.
2. "What is your roadmap to Tier 2 reporting on my top lanes?" If they do not have one, you have a vendor-selection conversation to have at next renewal. The market is moving here; forwarders without a credible plan are going to lose business to those who do.
3. "How do you handle the radiative forcing question on air freight?" Most carriers report air-cargo CO₂-only. IPCC AR6 puts the full climate impact at 1.7-3x the CO₂ number once contrails and high-altitude NOx are accounted for. A carrier who flags this in the response metadata and lets you choose how to footnote it is being honest; one who quietly reports CO₂-only without disclosure is leaving you exposed on a future restatement.

For developers integrating an emissions API — three things on your roadmap

1. Surface the methodology version and data quality tier on every response. Not in a documentation footnote — in the response payload, per leg. ISO 14083 expects it; auditors increasingly demand it. The cost is one extra field; the upside is reuse of your emissions data downstream by auditors and reporting platforms without each one having to redo the methodology mapping.
2. Build a primary-data ingestion path before you need it. Whatever API you are using, ask the vendor whether they accept primary fuel-burn data on a per-shipment basis. If not, your data-quality ceiling is GLEC default — a hard limit your customers will care about in two-to-three years. EcoFreight's API accepts fuel_consumed overrides, but the wider point is that primary-data ingestion is the structural feature.
3. Pin to a methodology version in the request. A response that does not declare which GLEC version it used is fragile. When v4 lands in 2027 (current draft cadence), the factor table will change. Caller code should be able to say "give me v3.2" or "give me whatever is current and tell me what that was." A null on methodology version is a bug in the API contract, not just a documentation issue.

About the Data

Every number in this report comes from either a public dataset or our own per-shipment calculator output. Where we did our own extrapolation — most notably for the 2025 absolute-emissions figures, which IEA and IMO have not yet finalised — we documented the method in the underlying dataset endnotes and we used the conservative estimate where the choice was between methodologies. The methodology page at /methodology has the full GLEC v3.2 factor table and the ISO 14083 data quality tier rules we use for the calculator and the API. The underlying emission factor data is available as a download at /data/glec-factors.csv. Per-route emission estimates for specific trade lanes are available on the trade lanes index.

Public domain versus proprietary: the IMO Fourth GHG Study, IEA Transport tracking, ICCT working papers, EEA Transport reports, UIC statistics, SBTi corporate progress data, and Berkeley Carbon Trading Project's offset database are all public. Our 2020-2025 extrapolations, the operator-range bounds on per-tkm factors, and the EcoFreight calculator output references are derived in part from non-public data — primary-data submissions by carriers using our API. We do not publish individual carrier figures.

Underlying data offer: the CSV behind the mode-by-mode summary table and the regulatory deadline table is available on request to journalists, sustainability consultants, and analysts. Email hello@ecofreight.co with the subject line "SOFE 2026 dataset request" and we will send the CSV and the methodology notes. License is CC BY 4.0 — attribute to "EcoFreight, State of Freight Emissions 2026 Report" with a link back to this page.

Citations

1. Fourth IMO GHG Study 2020. International Maritime Organization, 2021. imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/Pages/Fourth-IMO-Greenhouse-Gas-Study-2020.aspx.
2. Tracking Transport. International Energy Agency, 2025 release. iea.org/energy-system/transport.
3. GLEC Framework v3.2. Smart Freight Centre, 2023. smartfreightcentre.org.
4. ISO 14083:2023 — Greenhouse gases — Quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions arising from transport chain operations. International Organization for Standardization, 2023. iso.org/standard/78864.html.
5. CO₂ emissions from container shipping in 2021. International Council on Clean Transportation, 2022. theicct.org/publication/co2-emissions-from-container-shipping-in-2021.
6. The climate implications of using LNG as a marine fuel. International Council on Clean Transportation working paper. theicct.org/publication/the-climate-implications-of-using-lng-as-a-marine-fuel.
7. Transport and Environment Report 2025. European Environment Agency. eea.europa.eu/en/topics/in-depth/transport-and-mobility.
8. Regulation (EU) 2023/956 establishing a carbon border adjustment mechanism. eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/956/oj.
9. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1773. eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2023/1773/oj.
10. Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 on the use of renewable and low-carbon fuels in maritime transport (FuelEU Maritime). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/1805/oj.
11. Directive 2003/87/EC and the EU ETS Maritime expansion (Directive (EU) 2023/959). eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2023/959/oj.
12. Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464) and ESRS E1 climate standard. eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2022/2464/oj.
13. California Senate Bill 253 (Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act). leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB253.
14. IMO MEPC 82 meeting summary. International Maritime Organization, October 2024. imo.org/en/MediaCentre/MeetingSummaries/Pages/MEPC-82.aspx.
15. SBTi Corporate Climate Action Progress Report. Science Based Targets initiative. sciencebasedtargets.org/reports.
16. Voluntary Registry Offsets Database. Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, Goldman School of Public Policy. gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/centers/cepp/projects/berkeley-carbon-trading-project.
17. UIC Rail Transport and Environment Statistics. uic.org/sustainability.
18. IATA SAF tracking and Recommended Practice 1678 on CO₂ emissions methodology for air cargo. International Air Transport Association. iata.org/en/programs/environment/sustainable-aviation-fuels.
19. IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Working Group III (transport sector). ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3.
20. EU Rail Freight Corridor regulation (EU) 913/2010. eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2010/913/oj.

Related work on this site: CBAM 2026 carrier-side data, 2026 freight compliance checklist, Scope 3 Category 4 CDP guide, GLEC v3.2 in detail, three worked freight emission calculations. The EcoFreight calculator and API documentation use the same factor library this report describes.