What your fleet will cost in 2027 and 2028: Scope 1 in euros

It’s not on any fuel receipt, yet it’s in every liter: the CO₂ price. Since 2021, gasoline, diesel, heating oil and natural gas in Germany have carried a price per tonne of CO₂. For companies with a vehicle fleet or gas heating, it goes straight into operating costs.

These are exactly the emissions that show up in your carbon footprint as Scope 1: everything that burns in your own vehicles, boilers and installations. The good news: if you know your Scope 1, you can estimate your CO₂ costs for 2027 and 2028 fairly accurately.

This article shows what is fixed for 2027, what changes in 2028 with the new EU emissions trading system and how to translate your numbers into euros.

How the CO₂ price ends up in your costs

You don’t buy CO₂ allowances yourself. That’s done by the companies that place fuels on the market, i.e. oil companies and gas suppliers. They pass the costs on to you through the price. Until the end of 2027, the basis is the national Fuel Emissions Trading Act (BEHG).

The price per tonne has risen gradually since 2021: 30 euros in 2023, 45 euros in 2024, 55 euros in 2025. Since 2026, it has been set within a corridor of 55 to 65 euros.

Per liter or kilowatt hour, this results in the following values, calculated with official emission factors and net, i.e. excluding VAT:

The factors come from KfW’s CO₂ factors information sheet (diesel) and from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs’ guidance based on the Emissions Reporting Ordinance 2030 (natural gas, based on net calorific value). Blended biofuels have not been deducted; the actual surcharge at the pump is therefore slightly lower.

2027: The price stays in the corridor

For 2027, there is planning certainty. On October 15, 2026, the Bundestag passed the Third Amendment to the BEHG: in 2027, too, the CO₂ price for gasoline, diesel, heating oil and natural gas will be within the corridor of 55 to 65 euros per tonne. The Bundesrat had raised no objections in the first round.

Without this amendment, the price in 2027 would have been based on the fluctuating average price of the existing EU emissions trading system for industry and power plants. In its assumptions for the 2026 greenhouse gas projections, i.e. before the stabilization, the German Environment Agency (UBA) had assumed 80 euros per tonne for 2027.

For your planning, this means: for 2027, you can expect the same CO₂ costs as in 2026. The middle of the corridor, i.e. 60 euros per tonne, works well as a neutral planning value.

2028: ETS 2 launches – what’s certain and what isn’t

From 2028, the European emissions trading system for buildings and road transport, ETS 2 for short, replaces the national system. The launch was originally planned for 2027; the EU postponed it by one year.

What’s certain:

• The principle stays the same. In ETS 2, too, it’s the fuel suppliers that are regulated, not you as the end customer. The costs continue to reach you through the price.
• The price is set by the market. All allowances are auctioned; there is no longer a corridor like under the BEHG.
• Supply decreases. The emissions cap is designed so that emissions in the covered sectors fall by 42 percent by 2030 compared with 2005.
• There is a safety valve. If the price rises above 45 euros per tonne (in 2020 prices, i.e. adjusted for inflation), additional allowances are released from a market stability reserve. In 2026, the Council and the European Parliament agreed to double this volume from 20 to 40 million allowances, in time for the 2028 launch.

What isn’t certain: the price itself. The safety valve dampens spikes but is not a hard price cap. The German Environment Agency provides an official reference point: in its assumptions for the 2026 greenhouse gas projections, it uses nominal prices of 95 euros per tonne for 2028 and 125 euros for 2030. These are assumptions for model calculations, not forecasts – UBA itself stresses how uncertain price expectations are.

That’s exactly why it pays to plan not with one price, but with scenarios.

Worked example: fleet and heating in euros

The calculation is simpler than it sounds: CO₂ costs = consumption × emission factor × CO₂ price.

Let’s take a typical mid-sized company with 12 diesel vehicles and gas heating for its office and production hall:

• Fleet: 12 vehicles × 30,000 km × 7 l/100 km = 25,200 liters of diesel, or around 67 tonnes of CO₂
• Heating: 250,000 kWh of natural gas, or around 50 tonnes of CO₂
• Total: around 117 tonnes of CO₂ per year in Scope 1

Example calculation by today.green, net · Factors: KfW (diesel), BMWE/EBeV 2030 (natural gas) · 2028: UBA assumption and scenarios, not a forecast

Today, this company pays around 7,000 euros net per year for CO₂, a good 4,000 euros of it through the fleet. With the UBA assumption of 95 euros per tonne, it would be around 11,100 euros in 2028, and at 150 euros around 17,600 euros – each with unchanged consumption. So every tonne you save by then will be worth more from 2028 than it is today.

The values for 2028 are worked examples: the UBA assumption plus two stress scenarios, not a forecast. They show how sensitively your costs react to the market price.

What you can do now

1. Know your volumes. Fuel card reports and gas bills give you liters and kilowatt hours. That’s the basis for Scope 1 – and for any cost calculation.
2. Plan CO₂ costs as a separate budget line. For 2027 with 60 euros per tonne, for 2028 with at least two scenarios. That way, you see early on what a price jump means for your bottom line.
3. Factor the CO₂ price into investments. Whether electric vans or heat pumps: over a service life of ten years or more, the CO₂ price carries much more weight than in the first year. Electricity itself is not covered by ETS 2; power generation is already covered by the existing EU emissions trading system.
4. Check your supply contracts. Clarify with your fuel suppliers how they will pass on the CO₂ price from 2028, especially for contracts running beyond the turn of the year.
5. Use your carbon footprint twice. If you record Scope 1 properly, you not only have numbers for customers and banks, but also the basis for your energy cost planning.

At today.green, we build your carbon footprint according to the GHG Protocol together with you, with software and personal guidance. That way, you see in black and white where your emissions come from and which measures pay off.