# What is the carbon footprint of an industrial sewing machine?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/sewing-machine-carbon-footprint-per-unit

Most of it is in the materials: the cast iron or aluminium body, the steel parts and the motor. Assembly energy is a small share. Ask the maker for a figure per unit, or estimate from the machine's weight by material. A garment factory buying machines counts them as capital goods.

## Estimate from weight

1. Weigh the head, table and motor, or take weights from the spec sheet.
2. Multiply each material by a named factor (cast iron, steel, aluminium, copper).
3. Add the maker's assembly electricity per unit at 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh.

## Servo or clutch motor

A servo motor draws less power while idle than a clutch motor, so in use it lowers your Scope 2 across the shop floor.

## 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.

- [Capital goods in Scope 3](https://senseible.earth/answers/capital-goods-scope-3-count-in-year-of-purchase)
- [Sewing thread per kg](https://senseible.earth/answers/sewing-thread-carbon-footprint-per-kg)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.