How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a badminton shuttlecock?
Add the cork or synthetic base, feathers or nylon skirt, glue and thread per shuttle with supplier figures. Then add the unit's electricity for drilling, setting and drying, divided by shuttles packed.
Materials
- Natural cork or composite base.
- Duck or goose feathers, or nylon skirt.
- Glue, thread and tubes.
Process
- Base shaping and drilling.
- Feather sorting and setting, mostly by hand.
- Gluing, drying and packing into tubes.
Per piece
Report per shuttle and per tube of ten or twelve, the unit buyers order in.
Worked example: badminton shuttlecock unit per piece (one month)
- Electricity: 2,000 kWh x 0.710 = 1,420 kg CO2
- Shuttlecocks packed: 200,000
- Plant total: 1,420 / 200,000 = 0.00710 kg CO2 per piece
- Add base, feathers and tubes 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.
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.