The impact of pipe joining choice on carbon border taxes

Historically, construction procurement has been relatively straightforward. If the price was right and the specs were met, the ‘where’ and ‘how’ of manufacturing didn’t matter that much. However, the era of treating construction components as commodities is over. While EU-based manufacturers – especially those producing steel-based products – have navigated carbon pricing for years, the implementation of the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) ensures these costs are no longer confined to Europe’s borders.

Designed to address a long-standing imbalance and improve global standards, CBAM applies a carbon price to certain imported goods, including steel, cement, aluminium, and hydrogen, from January 2026. While European manufacturers already pay for their carbon emissions under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), imported materials have not faced the same cost, even when produced with higher emissions. This has encouraged ‘carbon leakage’, where production moves to regions with less stringent climate rules. 

Rather than creating a new cost, CBAM makes visible a carbon cost that was always present but never priced at the border – and this is a cost that can be incurred repeatedly on the long run. 

Why this matters for construction

Under CBAM, importers must now calculate and report the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in specific products and purchase certificates aligned with the weekly EU ETS price to cover them. Penalties for non-compliance are linked directly to that same carbon market. While responsibility for compliance sits with importers, its impact on cost and certainty will be felt throughout the supply chain, including distributors, contractors, and project owners. 

Teams on large and complex construction projects are already encountering situations where products sourced from outside the EU that initially appeared competitive at tender stage carry hidden risks once carbon reporting, administrative requirements, and certificate costs are fully accounted for. 

Projects that use locally produced, circular products, however, benefit from a simpler path with no additional reporting, no extra carbon costs, and lower administrative effort. 

Carbon costs don’t stop at first installation

Much of the CBAM discussion focuses on the point of procurement: where products are made, how much carbon they contain, and what that means for cost and compliance at the border. However, for many construction assets that is only the first chapter of the carbon story and little to no attention is paid to long term impacts.

Data centres, logistics hubs, and industrial facilities rarely remain static. Tenants come and go and systems are modified to meet new operational demands. A data centre operating over 20 or 30 years will likely see its cooling infrastructure reconfigured multiple times as hardware generations change and thermal loads increase.

When piping system components are permanently joined and must be cut out and replaced to accommodate those changes, the embodied carbon at first installation is lost. New materials are required, new fabrication, and installation are needed, and potentially additional CBAM costs are faced each time material needs to be reordered from outside the EU.

By contrast, piping systems designed for disassembly and reconfiguration retain their original carbon investment through those changes. Grooved mechanical joining allows pipework to be dismantled, repositioned, and reassembled without destroying the system. The carbon embedded in the original installation remains in service rather than being scrapped and replaced.

Piping system as a strategic choice

CBAM marks an important moment in the global approach to carbon pricing. For construction, it signals that emissions are becoming an explicit, measurable part of the cost base, not just at procurement, but over the life of the asset. It does not require project teams to become carbon specialists, but it does demand earlier and more informed decisions. Project managers should be asking a different set of questions when specifying mechanical systems:

• Do you know whether your specified piping system can be reconfigured without scrapping the materials and the carbon they maintain?

• Are you designing systems that preserve the carbon investment made at installation or systems that require that investment to be repeated every time the facility evolves?

• Are procurement decisions being made early enough so that different build strategies can be evaluated fairly, rather than measured against assumptions that were already locked in?

Handled well, these questions support clear data, better planning, and fewer surprises during construction and during the asset’s life. This transparency becomes commercially relevant. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), clear sourcing data, and documented manufacturing processes are becoming tools for managing regulatory and financial risk – especially when system choice determines whether carbon costs are incurred only once or repeatedly over an asset’s life.