How do I calculate the carbon footprint of an air cooler?

Weigh the plastic body, fan motor, pump, cooling pads and packaging, apply supplier or database factors, and add moulding and assembly electricity per unit. Report use-phase electricity separately; over a cooler's life it is usually larger than the making.

Materials

• Polypropylene or HIPS body: often the heaviest part; use a resin factor.
• Fan motor and water pump: copper and steel.
• Honeycomb or wood wool pads, castors, louvres and the carton.

Manufacturing

• Large injection moulding machines for tanks and bodies.
• Assembly and testing lines.
• If you buy moulded bodies, the moulder's energy is their footprint; ask for it.

Use phase

A cooler drawing about 150 to 200 W, run many hours in summer, uses a meaningful amount of electricity each year. State wattage, hours and grid factor.

Worked example: cooler plant per unit (one month)

• Electricity: 60,000 kWh x 0.710 = 42,600 kg CO2
• Coolers passed: 8,000
• Plant total: 42,600 / 8,000 = 5.33 kg CO2 per cooler
• Add plastic, motor, pump and pads for the full figure

Inputs are illustrative; use your own bills and production records.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads the plant's electricity bills (CEA grid factor 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, CO2 Baseline Database version 21.0) and fuel invoices (IPCC 2006 defaults) into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, the plant-level input to a per-unit figure. Bought-in materials go to the supplier evidence trail; product reports are self-declared drafts.

• Product carbon footprint calculator
• Injection moulding footprint per kg
• Electric motor footprint per unit
• Use phase emissions for pumps and motors

Sources: GHG Protocol Product Standard, ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org), IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0

Last reviewed 2026-10-20.