How do I calculate the energy and emissions of scouring raw wool?
Scouring is mostly heating water and drying wool. Add the boiler fuel and the electricity used in the scouring line over a period, convert them to CO2, and divide by kilograms of clean wool out. Measure water temperature and liquor ratio too, because those drive the steam use.
What to count
- Boiler fuel for hot scour bowls and dryers: coal, wood, PNG or oil, from invoices.
- Electricity for pumps, squeeze rollers and dryer fans x 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh.
- Effluent treatment energy if the plant runs its own.
Per kg of what
Raw greasy wool loses a large share of its weight in scouring. Divide by clean wool out, and say so, or the figure will look much better than it is.
Where to save
Lower bowl temperatures where the detergent allows, heat recovery from effluent, and better squeezing before the dryer cut steam per kg.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads fuel, electricity and freight invoices into a dated, fingerprinted record per site, so each figure you send a buyer can be traced back to the documents behind it.
Sources: CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults), ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org)
Last reviewed 2026-10-21.