How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a cricket ball?
Add the materials in each ball, such as cork and rubber core, wool winding and leather cover, using supplier figures. Add the unit's electricity for stitching, polishing and lacquer drying, divided by balls passed. Leather and the core are usually most of it.
Materials
- Cork and rubber core by weight.
- Wool or synthetic winding.
- Leather cover from the tannery, plus dye, grease and lacquer.
Process
- Core forming and winding.
- Hand or machine stitching of the seam.
- Polishing, lacquering and drying, and boxing.
Per ball
Report per ball by type, since a match ball and a practice ball use different materials.
Worked example: ball unit per piece (one month)
- Electricity: 4,000 kWh x 0.710 = 2,840 kg CO2
- Balls passed: 20,000
- Plant total: 2,840 / 20,000 = 0.142 kg CO2 per ball
- Add leather, core and winding 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.