A refrigerator: carbon footprint
Carbonle#15 of 16🧊Carbon footprintA refrigerator
300kg CO₂e
one fridge, made
carbonle.com
A refrigerator comes in at about 300 kg CO₂e (one fridge, made).
Of the 16 things you buy Carbonle tracks, A refrigerator sits at #15 from the lightest — one of the heaviest.
This is the one-off cost of making the thing, before you use it. It's why a reusable tote only wins after many trips, and why a phone's footprint is the factory, not the charger.
All that steel, insulation and cooling gear adds up before you plug it in.
Compare with
Figures from Appliance embodied-carbon literature (ACEEE 2012), licensed estimate.
How we get these numbers: Methodology.