# Is buying from a local supplier always lower carbon?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/is-local-sourcing-always-lower-carbon

No. Transport is often a small part of a material footprint; how it is made usually matters more. Steel from an electric arc furnace far away can beat local steel from a coal-based route. Compare cradle-to-gate footprints plus transport for each option, using supplier data where you can get it.

## How to compare

- Supplier footprint per tonne, cradle to gate.
- Transport mode and distance to your gate.
- Packaging and losses in transit.

## When local wins

For heavy, low value materials moved by road, such as sand, aggregate and bricks, transport can dominate, and local is usually lower.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads bills, fuel invoices and production records into dated, fingerprinted records, so the figure you send a buyer can be traced to its documents.

- [Air vs sea freight](https://senseible.earth/answers/air-vs-sea-freight-emissions-export)
- [Emissions of our raw materials](https://senseible.earth/answers/buyer-asks-emissions-of-our-raw-materials)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [Smart Freight Centre, GLEC Framework](https://www.smartfreightcentre.org/en/our-programs/emissions-accounting/global-logistics-emissions-council/), [GHG Protocol standards, including the Product Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/standards)

Last reviewed 2026-10-23.