# How do I calculate the carbon footprint of poultry feed per tonne?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/poultry-feed-carbon-footprint-per-tonne

Feed is mostly crop ingredients: multiply maize, soybean meal and other ingredients per tonne by supplier figures. Add grinding, mixing, steam conditioning and pelleting energy, then divide the mill's energy by tonnes of feed dispatched.

## Ingredients

- Maize, soybean meal, rice bran and DDGS by weight.
- Oil, minerals, vitamins and premixes.
- Bags.

## Process

- Grinding and batching.
- Steam conditioning from the boiler.
- Pelleting, crumbling, cooling and bagging.

## Per tonne

Report per tonne by feed type, since starter, grower and layer feeds use different ingredient shares.

## Worked example: poultry feed unit per tonne (one month)

- Electricity: 40,000 kWh x 0.710 = 28,400 kg CO2
- Coal: 25,000 kg x 2.42 = 60,500 kg CO2
- Feed dispatched (tonnes): 2,000
- Plant total: 88,900 / 2,000 = 44.5 kg CO2 per tonne
- Add maize, soybean meal and premix 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)
- [Cattle feed footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/cattle-feed-carbon-footprint-per-tonne)
- [Soybean meal footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/soybean-meal-carbon-footprint-per-tonne)
- [Egg footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/egg-carbon-footprint-per-egg)
- [Food processing industry](https://senseible.earth/industries/food-processing)

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.