# How do I calculate the carbon footprint of innerwear such as briefs and vests?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/innerwear-carbon-footprint-per-piece

Weigh the knitted fabric in each piece, including cutting waste, and multiply by your fabric supplier's per-kg figure. Add elastic, thread, stitching and packing, then divide the unit's electricity and fuel by pieces passed in the same period.

## Materials

- Knitted fabric per piece, from marker efficiency and GSM.
- Elastic waistband, thread and labels.
- Ask the knitting and processing unit for a per-kg figure; dyeing is usually its largest energy use.

## Making

- Flatlock, overlock and elastic attaching machines.
- Pressing or folding, and the compressor if pneumatic machines are used.
- Boxes or poly packs of three or five.

## Per piece

Report per piece by style. A pack of three is three pieces plus one pack's packaging.

## Worked example: innerwear unit per piece (one month)

- Electricity: 36,000 kWh x 0.710 = 25,560 kg CO2
- Pieces passed: 400,000
- Plant total: 25,560 / 400,000 = 0.0639 kg CO2 per piece
- Add fabric and elastic for the full figure

Inputs are illustrative; use your own bills and production records.

## 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.

- [Product carbon footprint calculator](https://senseible.earth/calculators/product-carbon-footprint)
- [Knitted fabric footprint per kg](https://senseible.earth/answers/knitted-fabric-carbon-footprint-per-kg)
- [Garment stitching emissions per piece](https://senseible.earth/answers/garment-stitching-emissions-per-piece)
- [Textile industry](https://senseible.earth/industries/textile)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Product Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/standards), [ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org)](https://www.iso.org), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel defaults)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html), [CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 21.0](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-database/?lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-20.