The EU Green Deal: What It Means for Irish Businesses

The European Green Deal is the EU’s overarching strategy to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. For Irish businesses, it is not an abstract policy ambition — it is the legal framework driving a cascade of regulations that are already reshaping compliance obligations, supply chain requirements, and competitive dynamics across every sector.

What the EU Green Deal Includes

The European Green Deal, announced in December 2019 and progressively legislated since, is not a single regulation. It is a policy architecture containing dozens of interconnected legislative measures. The most significant for Irish businesses are:

Fit for 55 Package

The “Fit for 55” package — named for the EU’s target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels — spans carbon pricing, energy, transport, reporting, and product regulation. The regulations most immediately affecting Irish businesses include:

• EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) reform — tightening the cap on emissions allowances and expanding sector coverage, with ETS2 extending carbon pricing to buildings and road transport from 2028
• Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — a carbon border tax on imports of carbon-intensive goods, now in its definitive period
• Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) — mandatory sustainability reporting for large and listed companies
• EU Taxonomy Regulation — a classification system defining which economic activities qualify as environmentally sustainable

Beyond these headline measures, the package includes the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Directives, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the EU Deforestation Regulation, and more — over a dozen legislative instruments in total, each with its own compliance obligations, timelines, and reporting formats.

The sheer breadth of this legislative programme is the first challenge. These regulations interact with and reference each other in ways that create compounding compliance obligations. A company’s CBAM data feeds into its carbon accounting, which underpins its CSRD disclosures, which must align with its EU Taxonomy reporting — and misalignment in one area creates inconsistencies across all of them. Treating each regulation in isolation leads to duplicated effort, inconsistent data, and compliance gaps that surface at the worst possible time. If you are trying to work out which of these regulations apply to your business and where to start, talk to our team about a regulatory mapping exercise.

CBAM: The Carbon Border Tax

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is one of the Green Deal’s most tangible impacts for Irish importers. CBAM puts a carbon price on imports of:

• Steel and iron
• Aluminium
• Cement
• Fertilisers
• Electricity
• Hydrogen

Since January 1, 2026, the definitive period requires importers to purchase CBAM certificates corresponding to the embedded emissions in their imports, priced at the EU ETS carbon price. This means Irish businesses importing steel, aluminium, or cement from outside the EU are now facing a direct financial obligation based on the carbon intensity of those goods.

The financial exposure is significant and variable — it depends on the carbon price (currently fluctuating between EUR 50-80 per tonne), the embedded emissions in your specific imports, any carbon price already paid in the country of origin, and the volume of your imports. Calculating this accurately requires emissions data from your non-EU suppliers, which many suppliers are not yet equipped to provide in the format CBAM demands. If you are importing covered goods and need help calculating your exposure or engaging suppliers for emissions data, get in touch with our CBAM team.

For a detailed breakdown of CBAM mechanics, see our guides on what CBAM is, CBAM reporting, and CBAM certificates.

CSRD: Mandatory Sustainability Reporting

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive replaces the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD) with a far more comprehensive framework. Companies in scope must report against the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), covering climate, environment, social matters, and governance — with reports audited and published as part of the company’s annual management report.

The reporting timeline for Irish companies:

Scope	Reporting Year	Report Due	Companies
Phase 1	2025	2026	Former NFRD companies (large PIEs, 500+ employees)
Phase 2	2027	2028	Large companies (1,000+ employees and EUR 450m+ turnover) — Omnibus Directive (Feb 2026) raised thresholds and delayed by two years
Phase 3	2028	2029	Listed SMEs

Before reporting, companies must conduct a double materiality assessment to determine which ESRS topics are material. The challenge is not just what to report, but how to build the internal data architecture to support it — CSRD demands cross-functional coordination between finance, operations, HR, and sustainability teams, new data governance processes, and board-level oversight that most Irish companies have never had to put in place. The gap between “we have some sustainability data” and “we can withstand CSRD assurance” is where most companies need specialist help.

EU ETS Reform and ETS2

The reformed EU ETS accelerates the reduction of available emission allowances and will phase out free allowances for sectors covered by CBAM between 2026 and 2034. From 2028, ETS2 extends carbon pricing to buildings and road transport fuel distributors.

For Irish businesses, the ETS carbon price — currently fluctuating between EUR 50–80 per tonne — directly affects energy costs, heating costs, and transport costs. The interaction between ETS reform, CBAM phase-in, and free allowance phase-out creates a shifting cost landscape where obligations in one area directly affect your exposure in another. Modelling this accurately — and planning for it commercially — requires an integrated view across all three mechanisms. Contact our team if you need help understanding your combined carbon pricing exposure.

Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence (CSDDD)

The CSDDD requires large companies to identify, prevent, and mitigate adverse human rights and environmental impacts across their operations and value chains.

Following the EU Omnibus simplification package (adopted by the Council in February 2026), the CSDDD’s scope has been significantly narrowed — it now applies to EU companies with 5,000+ employees and EUR 1.5 billion+ worldwide net turnover, with a single compliance deadline of July 26, 2029. While fewer Irish companies fall directly in scope, the supply chain effects remain significant — if your customers are subject to CSDDD, they will require sustainability due diligence information from you, adding another layer of data and documentation requirements that intersects with your CSRD and carbon accounting obligations.

Why the Regulatory Complexity Is the Real Challenge

Any one of the Green Deal regulations is manageable in isolation. The real challenge is that Irish businesses rarely face just one. A manufacturing company importing raw materials may need to manage CBAM compliance, CSRD reporting, EU Taxonomy alignment, ETS obligations, and supply chain due diligence requests — simultaneously, with overlapping data requirements but different reporting formats, timelines, and assurance standards.

The regulations interact in ways that are not always intuitive:

• Your CBAM embedded emissions data needs to be consistent with your Scope 3 reporting under CSRD
• Your EU Taxonomy alignment assessment depends on the same carbon accounting data that underpins your carbon footprint disclosures
• Your ETS obligations affect your CBAM certificate requirements as free allowances phase out
• Your ISO certifications can support multiple regulatory compliance requirements but only if properly mapped

Without an integrated approach, companies end up collecting the same data multiple times, making inconsistent disclosures across different reports, and burning time and budget on fragmented compliance efforts. This is exactly where specialist support pays for itself — reach out to our ESG advisory team if you need help building a compliance strategy that serves multiple requirements from a single data foundation.

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan

Ireland’s national Climate Action Plan aligns with the Green Deal, setting a target of 51% emissions reduction by 2030 and climate neutrality by 2050. Sector-specific carbon budgets impose binding reduction targets ranging from -75% for electricity to -25% for agriculture, with industry facing a -35% target.

These national targets create a second layer of compliance obligations that interact with the EU-level measures — meaning Irish businesses must navigate both simultaneously. The combination of EU Green Deal regulations and Irish domestic climate targets creates a regulatory environment where obligations compound rather than simply overlap.

How Clearscope Helps

The EU Green Deal is not a single compliance problem — it is a regulatory system that requires coordinated strategy across carbon pricing, sustainability reporting, environmental management, and supply chain accountability. Irish businesses that treat each regulation as a separate project end up spending more, reporting inconsistently, and missing the commercial opportunities embedded in early compliance.

We work with Irish businesses to build an integrated approach to Green Deal compliance:

• CBAM compliance — embedded emissions calculation, supplier engagement for emissions data, reporting, and certificate management for importers of steel, aluminium, cement, and other covered goods
• ESG advisory — CSRD preparation, double materiality assessments, ESRS-compliant sustainability reporting, and EU Taxonomy alignment
• Carbon accounting — Scope 1, 2, and 3 measurement that serves multiple regulatory requirements simultaneously, from CSRD to CBAM to CDP
• ISO certification — ISO 14001, ISO 50001, and ISO 14064 certification that provides the environmental management systems underpinning credible compliance
• Regulatory mapping and prioritisation — assessing your full exposure to Green Deal regulations, identifying where obligations overlap, and building a sequenced compliance roadmap that avoids duplication and maximises the value of every data point you collect

The companies that navigate the Green Deal most effectively are those that start with a clear picture of their full regulatory exposure and build compliance systems designed to serve multiple requirements from the outset. That is the approach we take with every client.

Contact us for a Green Deal readiness assessment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the EU Green Deal?

The EU Green Deal is the EU's strategy to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, encompassing dozens of interconnected legislative measures — from CBAM and CSRD to ETS reform and supply chain due diligence — that create compounding compliance obligations for businesses.

Which EU Green Deal regulations affect Irish businesses most?

The most immediate impacts come from CBAM (carbon border tax on imports), CSRD (mandatory sustainability reporting), EU ETS reform (rising carbon costs), and CSDDD (supply chain due diligence). Many businesses are also affected indirectly through their customers' compliance obligations.

When does CBAM become fully operational?

CBAM entered its definitive period on January 1, 2026, requiring importers to purchase CBAM certificates. Free allowances under the EU ETS will be phased out between 2026 and 2034, with the full CBAM carbon price applying as free allowances decline.

How does the EU Green Deal affect Irish SMEs?

While many Green Deal regulations directly target larger companies, Irish SMEs are increasingly affected through supply chain requirements. Large companies subject to CSRD, CSDDD, or CBAM require sustainability data from their suppliers. SMEs supplying the public sector face green procurement criteria. And rising carbon prices affect energy and transport costs for all businesses.

What is the Fit for 55 package?

Fit for 55 is the EU's legislative package to deliver a 55% emission reduction by 2030. It contains over a dozen measures — ETS reform, CBAM, energy directives, product regulations, and more — that interact in ways requiring an integrated compliance approach.