# What is the carbon footprint of a kulhad clay tea cup?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/kulhad-clay-cup-carbon-footprint

A kulhad's footprint comes almost entirely from firing it in the kiln. If the kiln burns wood or agricultural waste, that CO2 is biogenic and reported separately; coal or diesel firing is fossil CO2. Divide the kiln's fuel per firing by the number of cups that come out whole.

## Per cup

1. Record fuel per firing: kg of coal, wood or husk.
2. Count good cups from that firing, not cups loaded.
3. Multiply fuel by its factor; keep biomass CO2 as a separate line.

## Against a paper cup

The comparison depends on the kiln fuel and breakage. A kulhad is single use, so compare one cup with one cup.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads the energy invoices behind the making stage into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, and keeps material invoices on the Scope 3 trail. Material factors come from your supplier or a named database and are labelled with their source, so the product figure can be traced line by line.

- [Paper cup per cup](https://senseible.earth/answers/paper-cup-carbon-footprint-per-cup)
- [Terracotta planter](https://senseible.earth/answers/terracotta-planter-carbon-footprint-per-piece)

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

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.