When the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria adopted the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, most of the commentary focused on banks, oil companies and the big names on the Nigerian Exchange. That makes sense, since public interest entities are the first group that must report, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2028, with small and medium-sized enterprises following from 1 January 2030. On 23 September 2026 the Securities and Exchange Commission also asked listed companies and major capital market operators to submit their adoption plans by mid-October, which tells you the regulators are serious about the timetable.
Transport and logistics businesses sit in an interesting place in all of this, because they are affected twice over.
Your own emissions
IFRS S2, the climate standard, asks companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions across Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3. For a haulage company, a courier or a dispatch business, Scope 1 is mostly the fuel burned in its own vehicles, and that is usually the biggest number on the page. Scope 2 covers the electricity bought for depots, warehouses and offices. Scope 3 covers everything else in the value chain, including subcontracted drivers and riders, which matters for the many Nigerian operators who use owner-drivers rather than their own fleet.
A logistics company that becomes a public interest entity, whether through its size, its listing or the value of the government contracts it holds, will need to report all of this with proper records behind it.
Your customers' emissions
Even firms that will never have to report themselves will be asked for data. When a manufacturer, a retailer or an oil and gas operator reports its Scope 3 emissions, the transport of its goods by outside carriers appears under upstream and downstream transportation. The cleanest way for that company to get a reliable figure is to ask its carriers. Over the next two years many Nigerian logistics businesses will receive questionnaires from customers asking for fuel use, distances, vehicle types and emissions per shipment.
The operators who can answer quickly will look more professional and will be easier to keep on approved supplier lists. Those who cannot may find the customer simply estimates their emissions using cautious default figures, which nearly always makes the carrier look worse than it really is.
What to put in place now
None of this needs a large budget. Start by keeping a vehicle register that records the type of each vehicle and the fuel it uses, and make sure fuel purchases are tied to a vehicle rather than lumped together. Keep trip records that show origin, destination and load. Decide who in the business owns this data, because a figure that lives in one driver's notebook is not a figure an auditor can check.
It is also worth reading the FRC roadmap yourself rather than relying on summaries, since the dates for assurance and for different types of entity are set out there in detail.
A chance as much as a cost
Reporting rules can feel like another form to fill. For transport companies there is a real commercial upside, though. Fuel is the largest running cost in most fleets, and the same records that support a sustainability report also show where vehicles are running empty, idling, or taking long routes. Businesses that start measuring for compliance often end up saving money long before the first report is due.
If your company would like help understanding what the rules mean for your fleet or your customers, SMG is happy to talk it through.