MBI business case: from siloed optimisation to joint CO2 allocation with supply chain partners

Transport emissions are typically reported per contract year, based on aggregated figures supplied by the carrier. That same carrier reports to other customers using different methods, different assumptions and different reference years. The result is a set of figures that looks correct on paper but drives nothing operationally: no route choice is corrected, no load factor is improved, no cost driver is exposed. In that situation, CO2 allocation with supply chain partners remains a reporting exercise, not a management tool.

The MBI business case starts from the opposite premise. MBI here stands for a measurable collaboration between shipper and carrier in which costs, CO2 emissions, load factor and distance efficiency are measured at the same shipment level, by both parties, using a shared methodology. The motivation is not purely sustainability. According to Topsector Logistiek, transport costs are set to rise structurally in the coming years, partly due to ETS-2 from January 2028 and sustained pressure on labour and fuel costs. A shipper that manages on tariff alone and a carrier that manages on trip occupancy alone are both leaving margin on the table.

For shippers that will fall within the post-Omnibus CSRD scope (EU companies with 1,000+ employees and €450M+ in turnover) this is not a theoretical question. Scope 3 reporting requires a CO2 allocation with supply chain partners that is traceable to individual trips. Without a shared data structure that is not possible, and an audit will make that clear immediately.

Why siloed optimisation between chain links fails

A carrier optimises its trips at trip level: load factor, tour length, empty kilometres. A shipper optimises its flow at corridor level: service times, shipment volumes, modality mix. Both calculation models are internally consistent, but they share no common yardstick. The load factor the shipper sees, calculated per dispatched pallet, is almost never the load factor the carrier sees, calculated per deployed trailer-kilometre.

That mismatch produces two effects. Operationally it leaves margin on the table: redundant trips that neither party sees on its own, a modality choice that is optimised in theory but not in practice. Administratively it produces inconsistent CO2 figures: the same trip is assigned a different emission at the shipper's end than at the carrier's end, depending on which energy factor and which allocation model each uses internally. That undermines both the auditability of the Scope 3 report and the operational steering power of the figure.

What an MBI business case measures

An MBI business case measures four axes simultaneously, at shipment level, for both parties. The Cost Performance Index (CPI) breaks down the cost per shipment into fuel, vehicle deployment, driving time and transaction costs. The Load Performance Indicator (LPI) maps the load factor, the empty-run ratio and the deviation from the theoretically optimal route. CO2 emissions per shipment are calculated in accordance with ISO 14083, LRQE-verified, so that the same figure can be used in both a TMS review and a CSRD file. The fourth axis is shared savings: the portion of realised efficiency gains that the parties contractually share with each other.

Without these shared axes the business case remains the sum of two monologues. With these axes a steering document emerges that means the same thing on both sides of the table, and that holds up in an audit context.

The data requirement: a shared level of granularity

An MBI collaboration stands or falls on the granularity of the underlying data. Aggregated CO2 figures per corridor or per month cannot be traced back to decisions. Only figures per shipment, per vehicle and per modality reveal which trips were costly and emission-intensive, and why.

This requires the carrier to feed trip data (distance, fuel consumption, timestamps, load) directly from the TMS into the reporting layer, without a manual intermediate step. From the shipper it requires that shipment and order data are available at a shared identification level. Where primary data are absent, the GLEC fallback provides a defensible secondary source, provided it is also traceable for both parties.

How the collaboration works in practice

The practical implementation follows a limited number of steps, which both parties go through in parallel. The calculation engine, the reporting layer and the contractual governance framework are set up in the same cycle. The first three months are not about reporting, but about data quality and scope.

What this means for CSRD and ETS-2

For shippers within the post-Omnibus CSRD scope, Scope 3 transport is one of the most demanding categories to report on. An MBI business case delivers the data structure needed for this: auditable figures per shipment, consistent across multiple carriers and multiple years. In the same motion the carrier builds a commercial proposition that no longer competes on tariff alone.

ETS-2 amplifies the urgency. From January 2028 road transport fuels will be priced through the EU ETS-2 system, with trading in allowances from 2027 and a compliance obligation from May 2029. Carriers without shipment-level data cannot allocate their cost increases to customers or trips. Shippers without that data cannot verify the pass-through.

Frequently asked questions