Standardisation of the calculation of CO2(e) emissions along supply chains - challenges and requirements beyond EN 16258

European countries are expected to reduce their total annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by at least 20% by 2020 and by 60-80% by 2050, compared to 1990 emission levels (cf. Council of the European Union 2007, p.12). With the current transport system being powered by 95% petroleum products, it contributes about 23% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Furthermore, more and more organisations, commercial as well as non-commercial, aim for a reduction of their CO2(e) emissions, as these emissions are directly related to the organisations’ energy consumption. Also the growing environmental awareness of customers encourages organisations to try to reduce their environmental impact results. To effectively control and reduce CO2(e) emissions though and to identify best practice for supply chains, a reliable and clearly defined emission calculation method is needed to compare emissions over time as well as between different organisations, routings, transport modes etc. Various tools and methods have been developed on the basis of individual needs and requirements. They are set up by different organizations independently, serve different purposes and are developed with different intentions. As a consequence they differed in their approach, using different logic, data sources and calculations. With most supply chains being of international nature today, any standardization effort should be developed with the perspective of global applicability. Developments such as the EN 16258, the GHG protocol a.o., are important steps towards such an international standard. They still leave space for interpretation or do not cover the entire supply chain at the moment. The presentation gives an overview on the challenges still to be faced in the context of the development of a global CO2 emission calculation standard and proposes steps towards its development, based on the works of the COFRET project, which is funded within the FP7 of the European Commission. is needed as it builds the basis for the analysis of efficiency and effectiveness of different supply chains. Moreover, with an augmenting internationalisation of supply chains, most supply chains on global and on European but also on a national level are based on the co-operations of several transport and logistics service providers