# What makes up the carbon footprint of a television?

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

For a TV, the display panel and electronics usually carry most of the manufacturing footprint, and electricity used over years of viewing can be larger still. Report assembly in Scope 1 and 2, bought panels and boards in Category 1, and use in Category 11.

## Manufacturing

- Display panel and backlight, usually bought in.
- Main board, power board and chips.
- Plastic or metal housing, stand and packaging.
- Assembly and testing electricity.

## Use phase

Estimate use as rated power × hours a day × days × years, using a stated grid factor. State your assumptions, because hours of viewing change the result a lot.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads your electricity bills, fuel invoices and purchase invoices into dated, fingerprinted records, so a per unit footprint can be traced back to the documents behind it. Estimates are labelled as estimates.

- [Refrigerator footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/refrigerator-carbon-footprint-per-unit)
- [PCB assembly footprint](https://senseible.earth/answers/pcb-assembly-carbon-footprint-per-board)
- [Product carbon footprint calculator](https://senseible.earth/calculators/product-carbon-footprint)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Product Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/standards), [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [ISO 14067:2018, Carbon footprint of products (iso.org)](https://www.iso.org)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.