How do I calculate the carbon footprint of bone china or porcelain tableware per piece?
Add the kiln fuel for the biscuit, glaze and decoration firings at its default factor and the plant electricity at 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, divide by good pieces, then add the clay body, glaze, decals and packaging from supplier data. Rejects raise the figure per good piece.
Several firings
- Biscuit firing of the shaped body.
- Glost firing after glazing.
- Decoration firing for decals or gold lines, if used.
Per good piece
Divide by pieces that pass inspection, not pieces loaded. A higher reject rate means more fuel per good piece, so firing yield is a direct carbon lever.
Weight matters
Plates, cups and bowls differ in weight. If the plant reports per kilogram, a buyer can convert to pieces from the piece weight.
Worked example: kiln and plant energy per piece (one month, illustrative inputs)
- PNG: 7,000 scm x 2.05 = 14,350 kg CO2
- Electricity: 9,000 kWh x 0.710 = 6,390 kg CO2
- Pieces fired: 60,000
- Total: 20,740 / 60,000 = 0.346 kg CO2 per piece
- Add clay body, glaze, decals and packaging from supplier data
Inputs are illustrative; materials and packaging are added from supplier data.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads the energy invoices behind the making stage into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, and keeps material invoices on the Scope 3 trail. Material factors come from your supplier or a named database and are labelled with their source, so the product figure can be traced line by line.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0
Last reviewed 2026-10-21.