How do I calculate the carbon footprint of ice cream per litre?

Add milk, cream, milk powder and sugar from supplier or database factors, then pasteurising fuel, freezing and hardening electricity, refrigerant leakage, cups and cones, and cold storage. Divide by litres produced. Dairy ingredients usually lead; frozen storage and refrigerant leaks follow.

Ingredients

• Milk, cream, butter and skimmed milk powder: dairy carries farm methane, so it is usually the largest part.
• Frozen desserts using vegetable fat instead of milk fat have a different profile; label them separately.
• Sugar, stabilisers, flavours, fruit and nuts.

Plant energy and refrigerants

• Boiler fuel for pasteurising the mix.
• Electricity for continuous freezers, hardening tunnels and cold rooms at minus 20 to minus 25 C.
• Refrigerant top-ups: leaked HFCs count as Scope 1 at their global warming potential; ammonia systems avoid this.

Packaging and cold chain

• Cups, cones, sticks, tubs and cartons.
• Reefer transport and freezers at distributors are downstream; report them separately if you include them.

Per litre

Ice cream is sold by volume, and air whipped in (overrun) changes mass per litre, so state whether you report per litre or per kg.

Worked example: ice cream plant per litre (one month)

• Electricity: 120,000 kWh x 0.710 = 85,200 kg CO2
• Boiler PNG: 10,000 SCM x 2.05 = 20,500 kg CO2
• Litres produced: 400,000
• Plant total: 105,700 / 400,000 = 0.264 kg CO2 per litre
• Add dairy, sugar, packaging and refrigerant top-ups 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
• Dairy plant emissions per litre of milk
• Estimate refrigerant leakage without records
• 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.