How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a flatweave cotton durrie or rug?
Weigh the yarn in a square metre, including weaving waste, and multiply by your yarn supplier's per-kg figure. Add dyeing, loom electricity if powered, washing, drying and finishing, then divide the unit's energy by square metres woven.
Yarn and dyeing
- Cotton or recycled yarn by weight per square metre.
- Dyeing at your unit or a job dyer, with its steam fuel.
- Weaving waste and selvedge trimming.
Weaving and finishing
- Handlooms use no electricity; powerlooms and shuttleless looms do.
- Washing, drying and fringe or binding work.
- Rolling, wrapping and cartons.
Per square metre
Report per square metre, since rugs are sold in many sizes. Give the weight per square metre.
Worked example: durrie unit per square metre (one month)
- Electricity: 12,000 kWh x 0.710 = 8,520 kg CO2
- PNG: 1,500 SCM x 2.05 = 3,075 kg CO2
- Square metres finished: 20,000
- Plant total: 11,595 / 20,000 = 0.580 kg CO2 per square metre
- Add yarn and outsourced dyeing 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
- Hand-knotted carpet footprint per m2
- Recycled cotton yarn footprint per kg
- Textile industry
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.