How do I calculate the carbon footprint of dal per tonne at a pulse mill?

Add the mill's electricity for cleaning, dehusking, splitting and polishing, plus any dryer fuel, and divide by tonnes of pulses processed. Allocate between dal and by-products such as husk and brokens, by mass or value. Then add the raw pulses' farm and transport emissions as a bought-in input.

Process steps that use energy

• Cleaning and grading: electricity.
• Pitting, oil and water treatment and conditioning: little energy.
• Drying: sun drying uses none; mechanical dryers burn diesel, wood or husk.
• Dehusking, splitting and polishing with emery rollers: electricity, the bulk of a mill's own use.
• Packing: electricity and bags.

Husk as dryer fuel

Many mills burn their own husk in dryers. That CO2 is biogenic and is reported separately. Husk burnt is also husk not sold, so record the quantity: it affects how you allocate between dal and by-products.

Allocation

Pulses yield dal, brokens, powder and husk. By mass, each tonne carries the same share. By value, dal carries most of it, since husk sells for far less. State the method, the prices if you use value, and keep it steady from year to year.

Raw pulses dominate

The farm emissions of tur, chana or moong usually outweigh milling. Ask procurement for the origin of each lot, and use a published dataset for the crop and country, cited by name and year.

Worked example: one month at a dal mill

• Pulses processed: 1,000 t; outputs 720 t dal and 280 t husk, brokens and powder
• Electricity: 30,000 kWh x 0.710 = 21,300 kg CO2
• Diesel for the dryer: 800 litres x 2.68 = 2,144 kg CO2
• Mill energy: (21,300 + 2,144) / 1,000 = 23.4 kg CO2 per tonne processed
• Mass allocation: 23.4 kg CO2 per tonne of dal and of each by-product, before the raw pulses are added

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.

• Allocating emissions between co-products
• Rice mill footprint per tonne
• Product carbon footprint calculator
• Food processing 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.