The Project

Some time ago, I determined the carbon footprint for a chemical plant. The data and the conclusions are still relevant, although the actual production situation changed (the company centralized the production in a plant in the US).

Details about the project and the methodology are in the attached, downloadable document.

Conclusions

Although these conclusions are project-specific, they will be relevant in many other cases as well. They especially reinforce the argument that carbon emissions cannot be reduced through technical improvement alone – significantly decreased consumption will be necessary.

While the calculation of a carbon footprint is an objective process, many subjective decisions are necessary. Therefore, comparisons of carbon footprints from different sources should only be made if it ensured that methodologies and basic data are comparable.

Centralization of production leads to a carbon footprint reduction despite the increased transportation requirements - in this specific example the 3.8% reduction due to a move to a larger plant takes the carbon footprint increase due to transportation and some required re-processing at the customer site into account.