Something has been happening in my inbox that I didn't expect.
Over the past month, I've had conversations with founders and executives from India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia - companies I had no prior relationship with, asking the same question:
"We need to enter the European market. Can you help us do it?"
Not one of them found me through a cold pitch. They found me because of what's happening in Brussels.
Since January, the EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism stopped being a reporting exercise and became a paid compliance regime. Any company exporting steel, aluminium, cement, or fertilisers into the EU now has to submit verified, auditable emissions data, and pay a carbon price on top of it.
India is one of the largest exporters of CBAM-covered goods in the world. Steel producers there are projected to see profitability drop 25 to 30% if they don't adapt. Some estimates put the cost at $65 to $160 per metric ton of steel exported to the EU between now and 2036.
That is not a distant policy detail. That is a board-level problem, this quarter, for thousands of companies.
And the ones who are moving fastest have realised something important: this isn't just a compliance cost.
Indian steel producers with lower emission intensity are already sustaining volumes and increasing prices 2-3%, while higher-emission competitors face price compression of up to 9%. The companies that get ahead of this aren't just avoiding a penalty. They're winning share from the ones who don't.
Here's what nobody selling CBAM compliance software will tell you.
Fixing your emissions data is necessary. It is not sufficient.
A company in Mumbai or São Paulo can have perfect carbon accounting and still have no idea how to actually operate commercially in Europe, who the right buyers are, how procurement decisions get made, which distributor relationships matter, how to structure an offtake agreement that a European counterparty will actually sign.
That is a completely different problem. And it's the one nobody is solving for them.
I've spent thirteen years on both sides of that gap, in Zurich and Frankfurt, and in the emerging markets these companies come from. I know what a European buyer needs to see before they'll trust a new supplier. I know how long that trust actually takes to build, and how to shortcut it with the right introductions.
That is what I do now, formally, for companies entering Europe under exactly this kind of pressure.
A market-entry sprint. A go-to-market map. The first qualified meetings, already booked. Sometimes ongoing commercial representation, so the company doesn't need to build a team in a market they don't understand yet.
If your company - or one you advise - is facing this exact wall, reply directly. I'll tell you honestly whether this is something I can help with.
— André
Sources: CSEP working paper on India's CBAM response · Climatiq EU Regulations Guide 2026 · IMARC Engineering ESG Compliance Report, May 2026