# What makes up the carbon footprint of a tonne of copper cathode?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/copper-cathode-carbon-footprint-per-tonne

Mining and concentrating ore, usually the largest share and heavy on diesel and electricity; smelting and converting; and electrolytic refining, which is mostly electricity. The grid behind the mine and refinery decides much of the total, so cathode from a coal heavy grid can carry several times the figure of cathode refined on clean power.

## Stages

- Mine: haul trucks, crushing and grinding, often the biggest part.
- Concentrator: flotation power.
- Smelter: fuel and oxygen.
- Refinery: electricity for electrolysis.

## Primary vs recycled

Cathode refined from scrap skips mining and concentrating, so its figure is usually much lower. Ask the supplier for the recycled share.

## Using it

Ask your supplier for a cradle to gate figure with year and boundary. If you must use an average, name the source and mark it as an estimate.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel, electricity and freight invoices into a dated, fingerprinted record per site, so a copper product figure can be traced back to the documents behind it. Factors outside India are entered from the official source and labelled.

- [Copper cable per km](https://senseible.earth/answers/copper-cable-carbon-footprint-per-km)
- [Enamelled copper wire](https://senseible.earth/answers/enamelled-copper-wire-carbon-footprint-per-kg)
- [Smelter acid allocation](https://senseible.earth/answers/dahej-copper-smelter-sulphuric-acid-allocation)

Sources: [ISO 14067:2018 Carbon footprint of products (iso.org)](https://www.iso.org), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/), [International Energy Agency, country energy data (iea.org)](https://www.iea.org)

Last reviewed 2026-10-21.