How do I calculate the carbon footprint of a carbonated soft drink per litre?

Add the sugar, concentrate, CO2 gas and treated water per litre, then the bottle or can, cap and label. Add the plant's water treatment, syrup room, filling and chilling energy divided by litres filled. Packaging is often the largest share.

Ingredients and pack

• Sugar, concentrate and treated water per litre.
• Carbonation CO2 bought, counted at its supplier figure.
• PET bottle, glass bottle or can, cap, label and shrink film.

Plant

• Water treatment and syrup preparation.
• Blow moulding, if you make PET bottles from preforms.
• Filling, chilling, compressed air and bottle washing for returnable glass.

Per litre

Report per litre by pack size, since a small bottle carries more packaging per litre than a large one.

Worked example: bottling line per litre (one month)

• Electricity: 200,000 kWh x 0.710 = 142,000 kg CO2
• PNG: 10,000 SCM x 2.05 = 20,500 kg CO2
• Litres filled: 2,000,000
• Plant total: 162,500 / 2,000,000 = 0.0813 kg CO2 per litre
• Add sugar, concentrate, CO2 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.

• Product carbon footprint calculator
• Fruit juice footprint per litre
• PET preform and bottle footprint
• Food processing industry

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.