What is the carbon footprint per kg of frozen shrimp from an Indian processing plant?
Work it out from your own plant: grid kWh x 0.710 kg CO2, plus DG diesel litres x 2.68, plus kilograms of refrigerant charged x that gas's GWP, divided by kg of frozen product packed. In an HFC plant the refrigerant line can be as large as the power line.
The plant's emission sources
- Electricity for plate and blast freezers, IQF tunnels, the cold store, ice plant and processing hall: Scope 2 from discom bills.
- DG diesel during power cuts, often large in coastal clusters: Scope 1.
- Refrigerant leaks, measured as kilograms charged during servicing: Scope 1 for HFCs such as R-404A, R-507A or R-134a.
- Ice bought from an outside ice factory: Scope 3, because the ice factory's power makes it. Ice you make on site is already in your electricity.
Refrigerant: the line that surprises people
Multiply kilograms charged by the 100-year GWP from one IPCC report. In AR6, R-404A works out at about 4,728, so a 50 kg top-up is 236 t CO2e. Ammonia (R-717) plants add nothing here: ammonia is not one of the gases the GHG Protocol counts.
R-22 is still found in older plants. It is an HCFC controlled under the Montreal Protocol and is reported separately, outside the Scope 1 total.
Which kilogram to divide by
Use net weight of frozen product packed in the period, the figure on your packing list and export invoices. Glaze water adds weight but no product; if your buyer quotes per kg net of glaze, divide by net weight. Raw shrimp received is a different basis, because peeling and deveining remove much of the weight. State which basis you used.
What a plant figure does not include
Farm emissions from feed and pond aeration, hatcheries, transport of raw shrimp to the plant and ocean freight are outside the plant. For farmed shrimp the farm stage can be large. A buyer asking for a cradle-to-gate footprint needs those added from supplier data, so label your figure gate-to-gate.
Worked example: one month at an HFC plant (illustrative figures)
- Electricity: 4,50,000 kWh x 0.710 = 3,19,500 kg CO2
- DG diesel: 10,000 L x 2.68 = 26,800 kg CO2
- R-404A top-up: 50 kg x 4,728 (AR6: 44% HFC-125 at 3,740, 52% HFC-143a at 5,810, 4% HFC-134a at 1,530) = 2,36,400 kg CO2e
- Total: 3,19,500 + 26,800 + 2,36,400 = 5,82,700 kg CO2e
- Frozen product packed: 3,00,000 kg net; 5,82,700 / 3,00,000 = 1.94 kg CO2e per kg
- Without the leak the figure would be 3,46,300 / 3,00,000 = 1.15 kg CO2 per kg
Electricity and diesel give CO2 only; the R-404A line is CO2e, so the total is stated in CO2e.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads plant electricity bills and DG diesel invoices and applies 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh and 2.68 kg CO2 per litre. For refrigerant, give the gas name and the kilograms charged from the service report; an invoice for gas alone stays as evidence. Product weights come from your packing records.
- Reefer container emissions for food exporters
- Refrigerant top-up invoice to CO2e
- Ammonia or HFC for cold storage
- Food processing industry
Sources: CEA CO2 Baseline Database, IPCC AR6 WG1, Chapter 7 (global warming potentials), ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products
Last reviewed 2026-10-17.