Cement Life Cycle Assessment

Takes the plant year - raw mix, mill recipe, fuel, power, packaging - closes it as a mass balance, allocates it to one declared product, and reports the cradle-to-gate carbon of one tonne in the EN 15804 declaration format.

Why this matters now

Carbon numbers are now reported to regulators, lenders and customers, and they are audited. A plant that cannot show where its CO2 comes from cannot defend it - and cannot find the cheapest tonne to remove.

What this tool helps decide

Turn plant measurements into a checked engineering decision and an editable report.

What subscription adds

Keep the inventory year on year, reuse the same emission factors and boundaries across reporting periods, and produce a report structured the way an auditor expects to read it.

Built on the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard, its Scope 2 and Scope 3 guidance, and IPCC default fuel factors, with structure informed by GCCA cement CO2 and energy reporting.See process-tool plans

Input data

The declaration

Declared product Product standard

Reference year

Declared unit, kg

One tonne of cement leaving the works. Everything below is reduced to that.

Who is declaring it

This is what turns the calculation into a document somebody can publish. Fill in what you have; anything left empty is simply left out of the report rather than printed as a gap.

Manufacturer Address

Contact

Website

Place of production

Product code

Declaration number

Programme operator Product category rules

Prepared by

Verified by

Issued

Valid until

Verification

What the product is

Written for the customer reading the declaration, in your own words.

Product description What it is used for Statement on substances of very high concern Where the electricity comes from

The grid or contract the electricity figure above belongs to. It is named in the report beside the factor, because a carbon figure without its electricity source cannot be checked.

Product specification

Whatever your standard requires - chemical, physical, strength, setting. Any row left without a name is dropped. These print in the declaration exactly as you type them.

Requirement	Unit	Value

Cement mill recipe, tonnes per year

Clinker

Gypsum

Limestone addition

Pozzolana / SCM

Bypass dust returned to the mill

These add up to the tonnes of this product made in the year. The clinker factor falls out of them.

Other cements: clinker, t/y

Other cements: additives, t/y

Everything else the plant ground in the year, split the same way. It shares out the flows that are metered for the whole works and not for one product - power, water, lubricant - and it lets the plant balance close. Both zero for a single-product plant.

Clinker and raw mix, tonnes per year

Total clinker produced by the plant

All kilns, whatever it was later ground into.

Raw material	t/y as received	Moisture %	km
Limestone
Clay
Sandstone
Desert sand
Iron ore

The km column is the delivered distance of the first leg. It drives the transport carbon of the raw materials.

Gypsum, km

Limestone add., km

Pozzolana, km

Clinker chemistry, from your own analysis

CaO in clinker, %

MgO in clinker, %

CaO from non-carbonate sources, %

MgO from non-carbonate sources, %

The second pair is the CaO and MgO that entered the kiln already decarbonated - fly ash, slag, bypass dust returned to the feed. That calcium releases no CO2 a second time, and the Protocol deducts it. Leave it at zero if the raw mix is all natural carbonate. Recycled kiln dust is not counted here.

Kiln fuel

Fuel	t/y	NCV GJ/t	kg CO₂/GJ	Type

A biomass fuel still burns and still releases CO2. It is reported apart from the fossil total because the carbon it releases was taken out of the air first. Both numbers are shown.

Fuel ash entering the clinker, t/y

Ash stays in the clinker as mass. It belongs on the input side of the balance.

Site diesel, litres/y

Diesel CO₂, kg/GJ

Diesel net calorific value, GJ per 1000 litres

Electricity

Purchased, MWh/y

Grid CO₂e, kg/MWh

Generated on site from waste heat, MWh/y

Waste-heat power carries no fuel of its own. It is counted as generation and it reduces what you buy.

Ancillary and packaging, plant totals

Process water, m³/y

Lubricant, kg/y

Grease, kg/y

Treatment chemicals, kg/y

Bag weight, g

Bags used, per year

Carbon in the bag material, kg C per kg

Kraft paper as stated on the material declaration. It is reported as biogenic carbon content, not as an emission.

Losses and emissions to air, plant totals

Dust emitted, t/y

Bypass dust removed, t/y

NOx, t/y

SOx, t/y

Clinker stock change, t/y

Positive if the stockpile grew during the year. Clinker made and not ground is still an output of the kiln.

Transport

Vehicle

Payload, t

Fuel burn laden, L/100 km

Empty running, % of the laden burn

A lorry that delivers a tonne has to come back for the next one. The return leg burns fuel with nothing on it, and it belongs to the tonne it just carried.

Worked out, g CO₂e per t·km

Average delivery distance, km

Nothing here is a borrowed emission factor. The carbon comes from the diesel: how much the lorry burns, how much it carries, and the IPCC carbon content of the fuel you already entered above. Change the payload and the burn to your own hauliers and the factor follows them.

Use this inbound instead

Use this for delivery instead

g CO₂e per tonne-kilometre. Leave both at zero to use the figure worked out above. Fill them in only when your programme names a factor you have to use.

Upstream carbon of purchased materials

kg CO₂e per tonne delivered, from your supplier's declaration. Quarried stone from your own quarry is normally zero here, because the diesel that wins it is already counted above.

Limestone

Clay

Sandstone

Desert sand

Iron ore

Gypsum

Pozzolana

Packaging

Lubricant

Indicators from your verified declaration

These come out of characterised background data, not out of a plant measurement, so they are carried here as declared values for the cradle-to-gate stage (raw materials, transport and manufacturing). Anything left at zero is printed as not declared rather than as a result.

Ozone depletion, kg CFC-11e

Acidification, mol H+e

EP freshwater, kg Pe

EP marine, kg Ne

EP terrestrial, mol Ne

POCP, kg NMVOCe

ADP minerals, kg Sbe

ADP fossil, MJ

Water use, m³e deprived

THE DECLARED UNIT

Product declared

—

Made in the year

—

tonnes of this product

Clinker factor

—

clinker / cement

Allocation to this product

—

share of plant-wide flows

THE PLANT MASS BALANCE

Mass in

—

t/y, as received

Mass out

—

t/y, products and losses

Balance closes to

—

out / in

Unaccounted

—

in minus out

CARBON OF ONE DECLARED UNIT

Calcination

—

Kiln fuel, fossil

—

Electricity

—

Transport in and materials

—

winning and hauling the materials

Cradle to gate — raw materials, transport, manufacturing

—

Per tonne of clinker

—

kiln gate, calcination and fuel

Biogenic CO₂ released

—

reported apart from the fossil total

Delivery to the customer

—

Biogenic carbon in packaging

—

kg C per declared unit

ENERGY BEHIND THE NUMBER

Kiln thermal energy

—

MJ per tonne of clinker

Thermal substitution

—

alternative and biomass heat

Electrical energy

—

kWh per tonne of cement

Waste heat power

—

share of site demand

Declared unit - the inventory

Every flow of the plant year, allocated to this product and divided by the tonnes made. This is the table an assessor asks for first.

The product as specified

What your standard requires of this product, as you entered it. It is printed in the declaration exactly like this.

What one declared unit is made of

The materials behind one declared unit, normalised to its mass. This is the composition a customer is shown, and it follows from the raw mix and the mill recipe rather than being typed in separately.

The mass balance

Weighed as received, dried by each material's own moisture, and closed against what physically leaves. Fuel combustion CO₂ is not in this balance: its oxygen comes out of the combustion air, not out of the raw mix, so putting it on the output side alone would break the closure by design.

Environmental impact, per declared unit

How it is worked

Calcination = (CaO−CaOₙₘ)×0,785 + (MgO−MgOₙₘ)×1,092 [t CO₂/t clinker]

The calcination factor comes from the calcium and magnesium measured in your own clinker, not from a default. Any CaO or MgO that arrived already decarbonated is taken off first, because that calcium releases nothing a second time. Source: GCCA / WBCSD Cement CO₂ and Energy Protocol.

Fuel CO₂ = ∑ ( tonnes × NCV × carbon factor )

Fossil and biogenic are summed separately and reported separately. IPCC default carbon factors are shown where a plant has no measured value, and every one of them is editable.

Allocation = tonnes of this product / tonnes of all cement

Clinker-stage flows follow the clinker share instead, because a tonne of clinker costs the same to burn whichever cement it ends up in.

Declared unit = allocated flow / tonnes of product × declared mass

Engineering interpretation

Cradle to gate — raw material supply, transport and manufacturing — with delivery to the customer declared separately. EN 15804 calls these stages A1, A2, A3 and A4; they are stage names, not references to anything else. Calcination and fuel carbon are calculated from the plant's own analysis; every factor used is shown on this page and every one of them can be replaced.