How do you calculate the Scope 3 emissions of palm leaf tableware?

Which Scope 3 categories do palm leaf plates fall under?

That depends on what you do with them. The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard splits a company’s value chain into 15 categories, and for disposable tableware only a few apply. The table below is how I would read it from the buyer’s side.

The other categories, such as business travel or leased assets, have nothing to do with the plates themselves.

What emission factor can I use for palm leaf plates?

There are three ways to do it, and the GHG Protocol accepts all of them as long as you say which you used. A spend-based factor multiplies what you paid by an average for the product group. It is quick but rough, and it treats a cheap plate as lower-carbon than a dear one, which makes no physical sense.

The better route is weight-based. Gautam, Mata, Martins and Caetano (Energy Reports, 2020) studied areca plates made in India and shipped 12,320 km by sea to Lisbon. They found about 1,033 kg CO2e per tonne of plates. Their boundary ran from sheath collection through processing, cartons, shipping to Europe and disposal, which they modelled as 80% landfill and 20% incineration.

The third route is supplier-specific data from a lifecycle study of the actual product. We have not commissioned one, so for Ecodyne plates the published study is the honest choice. When a supplier gives you a per-plate figure, ask which study it comes from. If they cannot name one, do not put it in your report.

How do I avoid counting the freight twice?

The Gautam figure already includes the ocean leg to Europe and the disposal stage. If you book the whole 1,033 kg per tonne under Category 1, you should not also enter the sea freight under Category 4 or disposal under Category 5 or 12.

Some reporting teams prefer to split it, so that freight sits where their auditors expect it. That works if you replace the study’s shipping with your own number rather than adding to it. Your forwarder can usually give you the emissions for the voyage. If not, take the tonnes shipped, multiply by the sea distance to get tonne-kilometres, and apply the container-ship factor from the UK government’s greenhouse gas conversion factors, which are updated every year.

The weight you need is on our packing list for each container. To plan ahead, use our container calculator to see what fits in a load.

Where does most of the carbon in a palm leaf plate come from?

Not from growing anything. The sheaths fall from palms farmed for the nut, so the plate needs no crop, fertiliser or land of its own. In the Gautam study the largest contributors were trucking within India and grid electricity at the factory, which was modelled on the Tamil Nadu grid. Shipping to Portugal was under 15% in most impact categories.

Two things follow for a buyer. Full containers matter more than port choice. And the factory’s power source matters a great deal. Our 20,000 sq ft hub in Bhadravathi, Karnataka is solar-powered, and the 90+ pressing units that feed it are spread across the growing areas, which keeps the trucking runs short. Neither is reflected in the published factor, which is one reason I do not claim a lower number for our plates without a study to show it. There is more on the material side in what makes areca palm leaf sustainable.

Does the end of life change the number?

Yes, and it is the part you have most control over. The study assumed most plates went to landfill. Palm leaf is plant fibre with nothing added, and our plates are EN 13432 tested and passed, so they can go into food waste collection or composting with the leftovers still on them.

If your customers or your own sites send used plates to composting, you can model that instead of landfill. Use the factors your reporting scheme gives for composting organic waste, state the assumption, and keep the evidence that the waste stream exists. An end-of-life claim without a collection route behind it will not survive an audit.

What data can Ecodyne give for my Scope 3 report?

For each order we can send the gross and net weight per container, carton counts by product, the loading port and the shipping dates. We can also send our ISO 14001 certificate (TÜV India), the amfori BSCI audit and the EN 13432 test report on request.

Be clear about what ISO 14001 is. It certifies that we run an environmental management system and keep improving it. It is not a carbon footprint, and I would not let anyone present it as one. Write to sales@ecodynetableware.com with the reporting year and the orders you need covered.