Company Carbon Footprint: why LSPs can no longer rely on transport data alone

A Company Carbon Footprint (CCF) covers every emission source a company is responsible for, following 15 scope 3 categories plus scope 1, scope 2, not only transport. For an LSP already working with shipzero on shipment-level transport data, most of the work toward a full CCF is already done: transport typically makes up 60 to 65 percent of an LSP's total footprint, and that is the category shipzero already calculates with ISO 14083-aligned accuracy.

Why cargo owners are asking

Some cargo owners now audit their logistics partners holistically on CO₂ performance, not only on transport emissions – producing a full CCF is a competitive advantage in that relationship. LSPs that have made their own public commitments to reduce emissions, including those that have signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), need to show credible progress against those commitments every year; without a CCF, there is no evidence to show.

CSRD is no longer the only driver, but it has not disappeared either: it becomes a direct reporting obligation for some companies from 2027, and for others from 2028, depending on the company size. Indirect pressure also comes from EU ETS2 and CountEmissionsEU. In practice: a Sustainability Manager or CSO at an LSP can walk into a tender or account review with a number to show, rather than an intention.

What a CCF covers, and what it does not

shipzero's CCF methodology is approved by GUTcert and built on the GHG Protocol, covering Scope 1, 2, and 3. For an LSP, that means a fleet it owns (Scope 1), subcontracted transport both upstream and downstream (Scope 3 Categories 3.4 and 3.9), and the fuel and energy tied to that transport (Category 3.3). Warehouse and hub emissions fit into the same report: shipzero calculates them once the LSP supplies the underlying activity data, such as energy consumption, and attributes them to Category 3.4 if the hub is not owned by the LSP, or to Scope 1 or Scope 2 if it is.

What it does not do by default: a standard CCF report gives emissions per category, biogenic emissions, and the percentage change against a baseline where one exists. A CSRD-aligned version of the same report is available on request, adding the financial data points CSRD requires. These are optional inputs a client can choose to supply, not something shipzero collects automatically. The report format can be submitted directly for SBTi's required yearly progress reporting, but setting and validating emissions-reduction targets in the first place is a separate, dedicated service.

Where most of the footprint actually sits

For an LSP without its own fleet, a full CCF typically works out to roughly 65 percent Scope 3 Category 4 (subcontracted transport) and 25 percent Scope 1. For an LSP running its own fleet, that split flips: around 90 percent Scope 1 and 4 percent Category 4. What is left in both cases sits mostly in Category 1 (purchased goods and services) and Category 6 (business travel). Transport dominates either way, which is why the accuracy of that one category matters more than any other input into a CCF – and Scope 1 is the category LSPs most often get wrong, since it covers the activities they control directly rather than ones a subcontractor reports on their behalf.

That is also where LSPs attempting a CCF without a data partner tend to run into trouble: Scope 1 activities get allocated to the wrong category. The emission factors used are either not publicly available or run high where they are. And many LSPs have not actually defined which activities fall inside their own operational boundary in the first place.

What this looks like already

Pflaum Logistik is a concrete example: building on the shipment-level transport tracking it already had in place, it extended that into a full CCF, aligned to CSRD and to its own 2030 renewable-energy target – ahead of any requirement to do so, not in response to one. Read the Pflaum case study here.

For an LSP already working with shipzero on transport emissions, the step to a full CCF is smaller than it looks: the largest and most material category is already covered, and the rest builds on the same ISO 14083 ground truth.

That is what makes the difference commercially: an LSP that can produce a full CCF walks into a tender, an account review, or an SBTi submission with a number, not an explanation. The LSPs that cannot are the ones left catching up once a cargo owner, a target commitment, or a CSRD deadline asks for one.