How do I calculate the carbon footprint of butter per kg?

Take the cream per kg of butter from your yield, and share the milk's footprint between cream and skim milk by solids or economic value. Add churning, chilling and boiler energy and the wrapping, then divide plant energy by kg packed.

Milk and sharing

• Cream from separation, with the milk figure shared between cream and skim.
• State the sharing rule you used, by solids or by value.
• Salt, colour and parchment or foil wrap.

Processing

• Cream pasteurising with boiler steam.
• Churning, working and packing.
• Cold storage, often a large electricity share for butter.

Per kg

Report per kg with the sharing rule, since that choice can change the result more than plant energy does.

Worked example: butter section per kg (one month)

• Electricity: 30,000 kWh x 0.710 = 21,300 kg CO2
• PNG: 3,000 SCM x 2.05 = 6,150 kg CO2
• Kg of butter packed: 50,000
• Plant total: 27,450 / 50,000 = 0.549 kg CO2 per kg
• Add the cream's share of milk and the packaging 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
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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.