# Do nitrous oxide cream chargers in my bakery or cafe count in our emissions, and how do I work out the amount?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/cream-charger-nitrous-oxide-emissions

Yes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2006 Guidelines treat nitrous oxide (N2O) used as a food propellant, such as whipped cream cartridges, as released in full: an emission factor of 1.0, a pragmatic assumption. Add up the grams of N2O in the cartridges you use in the year and multiply by its global warming potential.

## What the Guidelines say

Volume 3 Chapter 8, Section 8.4, names "use as a propellant in aerosol products, primarily in food industry (pressure-packaged whipped cream, etc)" as a product use that emits N2O, and says "Typical usage is to make whipped cream, where cartridges filled with N2O are used to blow the cream into foam." For this use "none of the N2O is reacted during the process and all of the N2O is emitted to the atmosphere resulting in an emissions factor of 1.0".

## The sum for one kitchen

1. Find the grams of N2O in one cartridge on the pack, or the net weight of gas in a cylinder.
2. Multiply by the number of cartridges or cylinders you used in the year: bought, plus stock at the start, minus stock at the end.
3. Multiply the kilograms of N2O by its global warming potential from the assessment report you use, and say which.

## How the Guidelines time it

Equation 8.24 for countries counts half of this year's supply and half of last year's supply, because supply and use run through the year. For one kitchen that buys and uses within months, counting what you used in the year, with a stock adjustment, is a simpler alternative, not an equivalent, because Equation 8.24 deliberately lags supply by half a year; that choice is our reading.

## Other products in the same section

The Guidelines list N2O uses including oxidiser in jewellers' blowtorches, in auto racing and in laboratory spectrometry, as well as semiconductor manufacturing and sodium azide for airbags, and say "it may not be appropriate to assume an emissions factor of 1.0" for those. They encourage working out a factor from literature or measurement. The 1.0 is described as "a pragmatic assumption" (Section 8.4.3.1) for the medical and food-propellant uses, with any error expected to be small next to other uncertainties.

## Where it sits

N2O is one of the seven greenhouse gases of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol. Released at your own site, it is a direct Scope 1 line on our reading; the IPCC counts by sector and does not use Scopes. A maker of canned cream that sells filled cans has the filling losses in its own Scope 1 and the customers' use in the use of sold products category, again on our reading.

## A cafe using 5,000 cartridges in a year

- Cartridge of 8 grams of N2O: 5,000 x 8 = 40,000 grams = 40 kilograms of N2O
- Emission factor 1.0: 40 x 1.0 = 40 kilograms of N2O emitted
- Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) = 40 x the global warming potential of N2O in your chosen report / 1,000

The 8 grams and the 5,000 cartridges are examples. Read the gas weight on your pack; some are larger.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into dated records. It does not read gas cartridge purchases, so count the cartridges yourself and add the N2O line to your inventory.

- [Anaesthetic gases in hospital Scope 1](https://senseible.earth/answers/anaesthetic-gases-scope-1-hospital)
- [Fifth or Sixth Assessment Report warming potentials](https://senseible.earth/answers/ar5-vs-ar6-gwp-which-to-use)
- [Free calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)

Sources: [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 3 Chapter 8 (Section 8.4, Equation 8.24)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/pdf/3_Volume3/V3_8_Ch8_Other_Product.pdf), [Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Corporate Standard (seven gases, Scope 1 and categories)](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Based on the 2006 Guidelines. The seven-gas list and the Scope placement rest on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and applying them to a kitchen is our reading.