How do I calculate the carbon footprint of tile adhesive per kg?
Cement usually drives most of the footprint: multiply the cement per kg of adhesive by its supplier figure. Add sand, polymers and bags, then drying, blending and packing energy divided by kg packed.
Materials
- Cement by weight.
- Graded silica sand.
- Polymer powder and cellulose ether.
Process
- Sand drying, if done in-house.
- Dry blending.
- Valve bag packing.
Per kg
Report per kg by class. Sand drying with a burner adds fuel that bought dry sand does not.
Worked example: tile adhesive unit per kg (one month)
- Electricity: 15,000 kWh x 0.710 = 10,650 kg CO2
- Diesel: 3,000 litres x 2.68 = 8,040 kg CO2
- Adhesive packed (kg): 3,000,000
- Plant total: 18,690 / 3,000,000 = 0.00623 kg CO2 per kg
- Add cement, sand and polymer 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.