Freight & Shipping Emissions Calculator
Calculate shipping emissions by weight, distance and mode, across every leg of the journey
The shipment
Shared is the normal case for LTL and parcel.
The journey
One leg is one mode over one distance. A container moving truck → ship → rail is three legs.
Leave at 0 if unused.
Leave at 0 if unused.
Leave at 0 if unused.
Freight emissions
Where it comes from
The same shipment, one mode end to end
For your inventory
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Shared or dedicated: the distinction that matters
The most common mistake in freight carbon accounting is charging a shared shipment as though it had the vehicle to itself. If your pallet travels on a trailer alongside nine other companies' pallets, your share of that truck's emissions is your share of its weight and distance — that is what the ton-mile factors express.
Vehicle-mile factors are for when the whole vehicle is genuinely yours: a full truckload, or a dedicated run. Applying them to a part load can overstate your footprint several times over. EPA is explicit about this, and the basis selector above is where you tell the calculator which case you are in.
Why mode shift is the biggest lever
The spread between modes is enormous — roughly fifty to one between air freight and rail per ton-mile. Almost nothing else in a logistics operation offers a reduction of that magnitude, and unlike most decarbonisation measures, moving freight off aircraft usually saves money as well. The comparison chart above prices your exact shipment on each mode so the trade-off is concrete rather than abstract.
Where the numbers come from
- All freight factors: EPA GHG Emission Factors Hub 2025, Table 8, per short ton-mile — truck 0.186, rail 0.021, waterborne 0.077, air 1.086 kg CO2. Vehicle-mile figures from the same table.
- Underlying data: EPA Inventory of US Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990–2022, with ton-mile denominators from BTS National Transportation Statistics.
- Scope: combustion only. Upstream fuel production is excluded, which typically adds 20–25% for diesel.
- Waterborne: EPA's factor covers US domestic barge and coastal shipping. International container shipping is materially lower per ton-mile; for that, the GLEC Framework is the better source.
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter the shipment weight. Pounds, kilograms, short tons or metric tonnes - pick whichever your paperwork uses. Everything is converted internally to short ton-miles, which is the basis of the EPA factors.
- Add each leg of the journey. A leg is one mode over one distance. A container that moves by truck to a port, by ship across an ocean, then by rail inland is three legs, and each is priced with its own factor.
- Choose the allocation basis. Shared is the normal case: your goods travel alongside other shippers' freight, so you pay for your share of the vehicle by weight and distance. Dedicated means the whole vehicle is yours, which is charged per vehicle-mile instead.
- Set the shipment frequency. How many times a year you make this journey. The annual total is what goes into a greenhouse gas inventory.
- Compare the modes. The chart shows what the same shipment would emit entirely by air, truck, water or rail. For most supply chains, shifting even part of the air volume is the largest reduction available, and it usually cuts cost too.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I calculate freight emissions?
Multiply the shipment weight in short tons by the distance in miles to get ton-miles, then multiply by the emission factor for the mode. EPA's 2025 factors are 0.186 kg CO2 per ton-mile for medium and heavy-duty trucking, 0.021 for rail, 0.077 for US domestic waterborne and 1.086 for air freight. Ten thousand pounds moved a thousand miles by truck comes to 930 kg of CO2.
How much worse is air freight than ocean or rail?
Roughly fifty times worse than rail per ton-mile, and about six times worse than trucking. Air freight at 1.086 kg CO2 per ton-mile is the highest-intensity mode in commercial logistics by a wide margin. For most supply chains, shifting even a modest share of air volume to ocean or rail is the single largest emissions reduction available, and it usually reduces freight spend at the same time.
Should I use ton-mile or vehicle-mile factors?
EPA's guidance is that ton-mile factors apply when your goods share a vehicle with other shippers' freight, which is the normal case for less-than-truckload, parcel and common carrier moves. Vehicle-mile factors apply only when the entire vehicle is dedicated to your product, such as a full truckload or a dedicated fleet run. Using vehicle-mile factors on a shared load will substantially overstate your footprint.
Which Scope 3 category does shipping fall under?
Freight you pay for, inbound or outbound, is Scope 3 Category 4, Upstream Transportation and Distribution. Freight paid for by your customer after the sale is Category 9, Downstream Transportation and Distribution. EPA's factors serve both and are intended for the distance-based method. If you have actual fuel consumption data from a carrier, the fuel-based method is more accurate and should be preferred.
Do these factors include the emissions from producing the fuel?
No. EPA states explicitly that these are combustion emissions only - tank-to-wheel - and exclude the extraction, refining and distribution of the fuel. A well-to-wheel accounting typically adds twenty to twenty-five percent for diesel. If your reporting framework requires well-to-wheel figures, the GLEC Framework provides factors built on that basis instead.