# What is the carbon footprint of elastane (spandex) yarn?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/elastane-spandex-yarn-carbon-footprint

Elastane is a polyurethane fibre spun from petrochemical raw materials, so purchased chemicals are most of its footprint. Your own share is spinning, solvent recovery and heat setting energy. A garment with 5 percent elastane carries that share of the fibre's footprint.

## Where it sits

- Scope 3: polyols, diisocyanates and solvent purchased.
- Scope 1 and 2: spinning, drying and solvent recovery energy.
- Solvent losses: count any that are greenhouse gases; most are not.

## Blends

Weight the fibre figures by blend: 95 percent cotton and 5 percent elastane means 0.05 kg of elastane per kg of fabric.

## 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.

- [Polyester texturising per kg](https://senseible.earth/answers/polyester-texturising-electricity-per-kg-yarn)
- [Cotton vs polyester fabric](https://senseible.earth/answers/cotton-vs-polyester-fabric-carbon-footprint)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [CEA CO2 Baseline Database](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-database/?lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.