Our cup is 36 g of CO₂. Here's what that means.

We commissioned Rambøll to run a full life cycle assessment on our standard 600 ml PLA cup, the one used at Carlsberg-branded events and stadium pours. The work followed ISO 14040/14044 and ISO 14067, used the European Environmental Footprint (EF 3.1) characterization method, and was led by Senior Consultant Morten Søes Kokborg with our own Project Manager Viktoria Blemings on our side. It's a B2B-grade study, not a marketing handout.

The headline number: 36 g CO₂e per cup, cradle to grave, 600 ml functional unit.

Below is what that actually means, including the parts that aren't flattering, because the only useful version of an LCA is one you can defend in front of a sceptic.

Where the carbon actually sits

Rambøll's hot-spot analysis splits the 36 g into eight life cycle stages. Three of them dominate:

• Cup conversion (~45%, ~16 g): the energy and packaging needed to thermoform the PLA pellet into a finished cup at our factory. The single largest single-line item.
• Lactic acid (LA) production (~32%, ~12 g): the chemicals, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, used to convert sugars into lactic acid before polymerisation. This is upstream of us and runs on biomass-based energy at NatureWorks' integrated plant in Thailand, but the chemicals are the dominant contributor.
• Transport to Denmark (~13%, ~5 g): mostly the container ship from Taiwan via Hamburg to Aarhus.

The remaining 10% is split across sugarcane cultivation, the production-side transport, the polymerisation step, and end-of-life. Industrial composting and packaging disposal together come to about 0.6 g per cup, under 2% of the total.

What the number is, and what it isn't

It's a carbon footprint. Specifically, it covers Global Warming Potential, the impact category from ISO 14067. It does not cover water use, eutrophication, human toxicity, biodiversity, microplastic load, or any of the other categories an ISO 14040/44 study can include. We chose GWP for this round because it's what most of our partners are asking about, and because layering on more impact categories would have meant a longer, costlier study without obviously helping the next decision.

It's also a cradle-to-grave figure. That matters because some bioplastic LCAs in circulation report cradle-to-gate (i.e. up to the factory exit) and quietly drop the transport, use, and end-of-life from the number. Comparing those headline numbers to ours is apples-to-oranges. We deliberately wanted the full lifecycle visible so the comparison is honest.

Where we get to honest about single-use

Rambøll's report flags something we should say out loud: even with PLA, even with industrial composting at end of life, this cup is participating in a single-use linear system. The only circular element in the chain is the nutrient return when the cup goes through composting, material isn't recycled into a new cup. That's a meaningful caveat. The cup is still better than its fossil-plastic competitor on most dimensions, but "better" is not "closed".

We took the report on the chin in that respect. The system we're building beyond the product, the on-site compost machine at Parken, the off-take to Jysk Muld, the peat replacement at the end, is what closes the rest of that loop. The cup itself, in isolation, doesn't.

A 36-gram cup is a useful number. The bag of peat-free compost it becomes is the part of the answer the LCA can't fully measure.Bjarke Rasmussen, Director, Europe

Where the report says we can do better

Rambøll's sensitivity analysis is the most actionable part. Two leverage points stand out:

1. Energy mix at our factory, already in motion. The rooftop photovoltaic array at our factory in Taiwan is online and providing a meaningful share of the conversion-stage energy. This is exactly the lever Rambøll's sensitivity analysis flagged as the highest near-term impact, and it's now contributing rather than being modelled. Getting the exact share measured and the data attested is the next step, and the LCA refresh that follows should land below the 36 g headline.
2. Chemical sourcing for LA production. If the upstream chemicals, sulfuric acid in particular, were produced with the same biomass-based energy NatureWorks uses for the rest of the integrated plant, the LA-stage GWP would fall in the same order of magnitude. That's a longer conversation upstream of us, but it's the largest remaining lever.

With solar already contributing and chemical sourcing as the next conversation, the cup's footprint trends well below 30 g CO₂e per cup without changing the product itself. That's where the next round of work goes.

The number for buyers and partners

If you're a venue operator, caterer, or sustainability lead and you need a defensible per-cup number for your scope-3 reporting, 36 g CO₂e per cup is the number, with Rambøll's name on it. If you want to see the full report, the methodology, or the dataset evaluation, get in touch, we'll share it under NDA. The summary is published; the detail is for the people making procurement decisions on the back of it.

And if you're sceptical about a 36 g number being lower than the cup you used last year, good, you should be. Ask which standard, ask cradle-to-what, ask which background database, ask who reviewed it. Those are the right questions, and we have answers to all of them.

More from the blog

→ What the EU's plastics LCA report tells us

→ From the back of Parken to a bag of peat-free compost