What emission factor per tonne-km should I use for road freight in India?
Best is to build it from your own trips: fuel per km times 2.68 kg CO2 per litre of diesel, divided by the average payload, with empty running included. Without trip data, use a published default for the truck class, such as GLEC Framework values, and state the load factor it assumes.
The formula behind any tonne-km factor
kg CO2 per tonne-km = (litres per km x 2.68) x (total km driven / loaded km) / average payload in tonnes.
Truck size, load and empty return change the answer more than the choice of database. A half-empty truck has roughly twice the per tonne-km factor of a full one.
Which data to use, in order of preference
- Fuel invoices for the vehicles that carried your goods, allocated by tonne-km. This is the most accurate.
- Your carrier's own factor for that lane, if they can show the fuel and tonne-km behind it.
- A per-km factor for the Indian truck class, such as the India GHG Program's road transport factors, converted with your real payload.
- A GLEC Framework or ISO 14083 default per tonne-km for the vehicle type, with its default load factor.
Tank-to-wheel or well-to-wheel
A factor from diesel burnt (2.68 kg CO2 per litre, the IPCC 2006 default) is tank-to-wheel CO2. GLEC and ISO 14083 report well-to-wheel CO2e, which adds emissions from producing and delivering the fuel, so their figures are higher. Do not mix the two in one total, and label which one you use.
Edge cases
- Part loads: allocate the trip's emissions by your share of tonne-km, not by your share of the freight bill.
- Volume-limited cargo: if the truck is full by volume, use your share of space, and say so.
- No weight on the bill: take weight from the invoice or packing list, not from the freight amount.
Worked example: a 1,000 km trip with a 16 tonne load
- Assumed fuel economy: 3.5 km per litre, loaded and empty
- Empty running: 25 percent extra, so 1,250 km driven for 1,000 loaded km
- Diesel: 1,250 / 3.5 = 357.1 litres; 357.1 x 2.68 = 957.1 kg CO2
- Tonne-km: 16 x 1,000 = 16,000
- Factor: 957.1 / 16,000 = 0.060 kg CO2 per tonne-km, tank-to-wheel
Fuel economy and empty running are assumptions; replace them with your carrier's figures. Senseible's logistics calculator uses a GLEC v3.0 well-to-wheel default of 0.062 kg CO2e per tonne-km for articulated trucks at 70 percent load, which is a different basis.
What Senseible does here
Senseible's logistics emissions calculator uses GLEC Framework v3.0 defaults with load factor and empty-return adjustments, and freight invoices read in Senseible are kept as Scope 3 evidence. It does not hold the India GHG Program truck factors.
Sources: GLEC Framework v3, Smart Freight Centre, ISO 14083:2023, GHG emissions from transport chains, IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 (Energy)
Last reviewed 2026-10-15.