# What are the emissions of producing acetic acid per tonne?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/acetic-acid-production-co2-per-tonne

Most acetic acid is made by reacting methanol with carbon monoxide. Your Scope 1 and 2 are steam, fuel and electricity for reaction and purification; the methanol and CO bought in, or the syngas you make for them, carry most of the footprint.

## Where it sits

- Scope 1: boiler fuel; any CO made on site from gas or coal.
- Scope 2: electricity for compressors and pumps.
- Scope 3: methanol and CO purchased.

## CBAM

Acetic acid is not a CBAM good. Methanol is not either; hydrogen is, so a plant making its own hydrogen should check.

## 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.

- [Methanol plant emissions](https://senseible.earth/answers/methanol-production-emissions-per-tonne)
- [Petcoke gasification syngas](https://senseible.earth/answers/petcoke-gasification-syngas-co2)

Sources: [IPCC 2006 Guidelines](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/), [CBAM Regulation (EU) 2023/956, consolidated](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2023/956/2025-10-20), [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.