Carbon Credits for Cement and Steel Companies in India: Compliance, CBAM and Cost
No two Indian industries face more carbon pressure than cement and steel. Both are on the obligated-entity list under India's Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, both are squarely inside the EU's CBAM, and both have process emissions that no amount of renewable electricity can fully remove. That combination makes a clear-headed carbon credit strategy a financial necessity, not a CSR gesture.
The squeeze from both sides
At home: CCTS sets emission-intensity targets per tonne of output. Beat your target and you earn tradable carbon credit certificates; miss it and you must buy them. Intensity per tonne of clinker or crude steel is now a P&L variable.
Where credits fit — and where they don't
Reduce first: waste heat recovery, alternative fuels, clinker substitution, scrap-based EAF routes and green power purchase all cut intensity directly and improve your CCTS position. Credits then cover what process chemistry will not let you eliminate — the calcination emissions in clinker, the coke in blast furnaces. For those residual tonnes, high-integrity removal credits are the defensible choice for net zero claims, while avoidance credits offer volume at lower cost for broader offsetting programmes.
A practical 2026 playbook
Build installation-level GHG accounting that serves CCTS, CBAM and BRSR from one dataset — collecting three times for three regulators is wasted money.
Model your CCTS surplus/deficit early each compliance year so you buy credits on your schedule, not at deadline prices.
Vet every credit against registry documentation — our buyer's guide lists the red flags.
Csquare supplies verified carbon credits and builds the GHG accounting behind CCTS and CBAM compliance. Talk to us before your next compliance cycle.
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