What are the emissions from processing lac into shellac?

Stick lac is crushed, washed, dried and melted into shellac. Emissions come from electricity for crushers and washers, and fuel for melting and drying. Lac itself is a natural resin, so its carbon is biogenic. Record fuel and power per kg of shellac made.

Process steps

1. Crushing and sieving stick lac.
2. Washing to seedlac, then drying.
3. Melting and filtering to shellac flakes.

What to record

Units on the electricity bill, fuel bought for melting, and kilograms of seedlac and shellac produced each month.

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.

• Biomass fuel still has CH4 and N2O
• Buyer asks before first order

Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2: Energy

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.