# What are the emissions from making gelatin?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/gelatin-plant-emissions-per-tonne

Gelatin from bones or hides needs weeks of liming or acid treatment, then hot-water extraction, evaporation and drying. Steam for extraction and drying is the main energy use, so boiler fuel dominates. Add grid power, effluent treatment and the raw material.

## Main sources

- Boiler fuel for extraction, evaporation and drying.
- Electricity for pumps, chillers and filters.
- Effluent treatment, which can release methane if anaerobic.

## Raw material

Bones and hides are by-products of meat processing. State the allocation rule you used for them, because it changes the answer a lot.

## 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.

- [ETP wastewater methane](https://senseible.earth/answers/etp-wastewater-methane-emissions)
- [Tannery boiler and ETP](https://senseible.earth/answers/ambur-tannery-boiler-etp-emissions)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.