# What is the carbon footprint of a packaged drinking water plant per litre?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/packaged-drinking-water-plant-emissions-per-litre

At the plant, electricity for RO, ozonation and filling is the main own source, at 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh. The bottles usually weigh more in the total: PET preforms and caps are Scope 3. Divide the month's total by litres filled.

## Split

- Scope 2: RO, pumps, ozone, blow moulding, filling.
- Scope 1: genset diesel, delivery vans.
- Scope 3: preforms, caps, labels, cartons.

## Jars vs bottles

Returnable 20 litre jars spread their plastic over many refills, so they carry far less packaging per litre.

## 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.

- [Office water jars](https://senseible.earth/answers/bottled-water-jars-office-emissions)
- [PET bottle flakes](https://senseible.earth/answers/pet-bottle-recycling-flakes-carbon-per-kg)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard), [CEA CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-database/?lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.