A million 12 ounce cans of soft drink carbonated to 3.8 volumes carry about 2.6 metric tons of CO₂ out of the plant. That gas is the reason the product exists, and it appears nowhere in the carbon footprint the CO₂ supplier provides. The supplier's number is accurate. It was built to stop before anyone opens the can.
Two documents decide how that CO₂ gets counted, and they draw their boundaries in different places. One is the method industrial gas companies use to report a product carbon footprint to their customers. The other is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol guidance a beverage company uses for its own Scope 3 inventory. The most important fact about a load of CO₂, where its carbon came from, falls in the gap between them.
The Supplier's Number Stops at the Gate
The Asia Industrial Gases Association publishes its footprint methodology as AIGA 084/13, based on the European Industrial Gases Association's Doc. 167/11. It sets the boundary at production and distribution on a business to business basis. The calculation stops once the product reaches the user, so product use and end of life are not usually included.
For CO₂ the document says so directly. Its boundary chart for hydrogen, carbon monoxide and CO₂ carries a note that emissions from CO₂ product use are not reported by members, because the scope is business to business.
The supplier's number covers the energy to produce and purify the gas, the trucking, and leakage at each transfer. AIGA lists what moves that number from one supplier to the next: the grid emission factor for electricity, transport, plant efficiency and loading, and the method used to allocate emissions between co-products. Where the carbon came from is not on the list. The carbon itself sits outside the boundary.
The Molecule Lands in Category 11
The GHG Protocol's Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions handles the other side. Category 11, use of sold products, splits into direct and indirect use-phase emissions, and the direct ones are required. One of the three product types listed under direct emissions is greenhouse gases and products that contain or form greenhouse gases that are emitted during use. The examples include CO₂ and industrial gases.
The guidance leaves beverages no room for interpretation. In the same section it describes a consumer goods company selling carbonated drinks that groups its products by packaging type and applies one use profile to each group.
The formula multiplies the GHG contained per product by the number of products sold, the share released during use, and the gas's global warming potential. Where the share released is unknown, the guidance says to assume 100 percent. A sealed drink gets opened and finished, so 100 percent is close to the real figure anyway.
Running the Number
One volume of carbonation is 1.96 grams of CO₂ per liter of product. A 12 ounce can at 3.8 volumes holds about 2.6 grams. A thirty one gallon barrel of beer at 2.6 volumes holds about 1.3 pounds.
Multiply by production and the Category 11 line takes shape. At 2.6 grams a can, every million cans adds about 2.6 metric tons of CO₂ to direct use-phase emissions at full release.
A plant buys more CO₂ than it dissolves. Purge gas, transfer gas and counter pressure at the filler never leave in the package, and they raise their own accounting questions inside the plant. The dissolved fraction is the part the Scope 3 guidance assigns to the product.
Origin Decides the Column
The Scope 3 Standard adds one more rule. Biogenic CO₂ emissions that occur in the reporting company's value chain stay out of the scope totals and are reported separately. Fossil CO₂ gets no such treatment.
So the same 2.6 grams lands in one of two places. CO₂ recovered at an ammonia plant or drawn from a natural well is fossil carbon, and it belongs in Category 11 at a global warming potential of one. CO₂ recovered from biogas is carbon that plants pulled from the air recently, and it belongs in the separate biogenic line.
The supplier footprints for those two loads can be close to identical, since both cover only purification power, trucking and transfer losses. The reporting treatment of the product differs by every gram in the package.
Biogenic origin needs a lab result behind it. Radiocarbon testing under ASTM D6866 separates fossil carbon from recent carbon, because fossil carbon is old enough that its carbon-14 has decayed away. A biogenic claim that rests on a supply contract alone is the first thing an assurance review will question.
What This Means for a Buyer
AIGA's own method anticipates this comparison. When interested parties compare the footprints of different products used for the same application, it says the use phase shall always be considered, so the result is not misread. A beverage company choosing between CO₂ sources is making exactly that comparison.
That changes what a sustainability team should request. A gate-to-gate figure in kilograms of CO₂e per ton is the starting point. The items that settle the Category 11 line are the origin of the carbon, a radiocarbon result that confirms it, and a clear statement of whether the footprint boundary includes use. Without the first two, an inventory has no basis for reporting the dissolved CO₂ anywhere except inside the scope total.
Raw biogas from landfills and organic waste is 35 to 45 percent CO₂, and upgrading it to renewable natural gas strips that CO₂ out. CleanCycleCarbon captures that biogenic stream and purifies it with patent pending cryogenic technology to beverage grade, 99.9 percent purity, the spec we certify to. We entered continuous commercial beverage grade production in December 2024.
Purity decides whether a load of CO₂ can go into a drink at all. Origin decides which line of the inventory that CO₂ is reported on once the drink is opened, and the supplier's footprint was scoped to leave that answer out, so the buyer has to ask for it separately.
