How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a glass tumbler?

Most of a tumbler's footprint comes from melting glass: divide the furnace fuel and plant electricity by good pieces packed, then add batch materials and packing. Count CO2 released by soda ash and limestone in the batch separately from fuel.

Melting and forming

• Furnace fuel, often natural gas or furnace oil.
• Pressing or blowing machines and fire polishing.
• Annealing lehr.

Batch and packing

• Sand, soda ash, limestone and cullet.
• Process CO2 from the carbonates.
• Cartons and dividers.

Per piece

Report per piece with its weight. A heavier tumbler takes more glass and more melting energy.

Worked example: glass tumbler unit per piece (one month)

• PNG: 150,000 SCM x 2.05 = 307,500 kg CO2
• Electricity: 100,000 kWh x 0.710 = 71,000 kg CO2
• Pieces produced: 1,500,000
• Plant total: 378,500 / 1,500,000 = 0.252 kg CO2 per piece
• Add batch process CO2 and packing 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
• Glass bottle footprint
• Is glassware covered by CBAM
• Ceramics 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.