How do I calculate the carbon footprint of papad per kg?
Add the urad or moong flour, rice flour, salt, spices and edible oil, then dough mixing, rolling, drying and packing energy. Divide by kilograms packed. Pulse flour is usually the largest part; sun drying uses no fuel, while dryers on electricity or fuel add to the plant line.
Ingredients
- Urad, moong or rice flour, counted by kilograms used.
- Papad khar, salt, spices and oil.
Process
- Dough mixers and rolling machines.
- Dryers: electricity, LPG or biomass; sun drying is zero fuel.
- Home-based rolling by women's groups: count any electricity only if they use machines.
Per kg
Report per kg packed. If you sell fryums or khakhra on the same line, allocate dryer energy by kilograms dried.
Worked example: papad unit per kg (one month)
- Electricity: 3,000 kWh x 0.710 = 2,130 kg CO2
- Dryer LPG: 300 kg x 2.98 = 894 kg CO2
- Papad packed (kg): 15,000
- Plant total: 3,024 / 15,000 = 0.202 kg CO2 per kg
- Add flours, spices and packaging 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.