How do I calculate the carbon footprint of imitation or fashion jewellery?
Weigh the base metal, usually brass, copper or zinc alloy, and multiply by supplier figures. Add casting, polishing, electroplating, stone setting and packing energy, then divide the unit's electricity and fuel by kg passed. Plating energy can be a large share.
Materials
- Brass, copper or zinc alloy by weight.
- Plating metals such as gold, silver, rhodium or nickel.
- Stones, beads, enamel and boxes.
Process
- Casting or stamping and soldering.
- Polishing and buffing.
- Electroplating baths and rectifiers, and lacquering.
Per kg and per piece
Report per kg for a range, and per piece for a buyer's design with its weight.
Worked example: jewellery unit per kg (one month)
- Electricity: 10,000 kWh x 0.710 = 7,100 kg CO2
- LPG: 300 kg x 2.98 = 894 kg CO2
- Kg of jewellery passed: 2,000
- Plant total: 7,994 / 2,000 = 3.997 kg CO2 per kg
- Add base metal, plating metal and stones 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.