a b s t r a c t
Carbon footprint (CFP) of sugar produced from sugarcane in eastern Thailand was estimated from
greenhouse gas emissions (CO2, CH4, and N2O) during the sugarcane cultivation and milling process. The
use of fossil fuels, chemical and organic fertilizer and sugarcane biomass data during cultivation were
collected from field surveys, questionnaires and interviews. Sugar mill emissions, fossil fuel utilization
and greenhouse gas emission from wastewater treatments were included. The results show that sugar
production has a carbon footprint of 0.55 kg CO2e kg1 sugar. This carbon footprint was a sum of
0.49 kg CO2e kg1 sugar from sugarcane cultivation and 0.06 kg CO2e kg1 sugar from the milling process.
For the cultivation part, most of the GHGs emissions were from fertilizer, fossil fuel use and biomass
burning. The CFP in eastern Thailand is sensitive to the type of data selected for calculation and of
variations of farm inputs during sugarcane cultivation. There was no significant difference of CFP among
farm sizes, although small farms tended to give a relatively higher CFP than that of medium and large