See How Much CO₂ Your Restaurant Saves by Recycling Used Cooking Oil

Methodology, factors, and limits

What it uses

One number: gallons of used cooking oil per week or per month. The restaurant type, daily covers, fryer count, and location count only auto-fill an estimate of that number when you do not know it. Nothing is looked up or stored.

The emissions factor, named exactly

17.0 pounds of CO₂ avoided per US gallon of used cooking oil recycled (17.020 before rounding). It is not measured. We walk your UCO volume through four steps, in order, rather than applying one opaque multiplier:

1. UCO gallons → biodiesel gallons, × 0.95. A working assumption for transesterification yield, not a published factor. Detailed further down.
2. Biodiesel gallons → diesel-gallon-equivalent (DGE), × 0.93. Biodiesel is not energy-equivalent to petroleum diesel gallon-for-gallon. Source: DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Fuel Properties Comparison, which lists B100 at a lower heating value of about 119,550 Btu per gallon versus about 128,488 Btu per gallon for petroleum diesel, B100 carries 93% of the energy in one diesel gallon, published directly as 1 gallon B100 = 0.93 DGE. Page checked August 18, 2026.
3. Diesel-gallon-equivalent → CO₂ that volume of diesel would emit, × 22.4 lbs CO₂ per gallon. Source: the EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator, Calculations and References, which publishes 10.180 × 10^-3 metric tons CO₂ per gallon of diesel. That is 10,180 grams, or 22.44 pounds. Data year: EPA states the calculations use 2022 data. Page checked August 18, 2026.
4. Apply the lifecycle greenhouse gas reduction, × 86%. Source: Xu, Ou, Li, Hawkins and Wang, Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel Production in the United States, Environmental Science & Technology, published June 21, 2022, doi 10.1021/acs.est.2c00289. The paper reports that converting tallow, used cooking oil, and distillers corn oil to biodiesel and renewable diesel could achieve GHG reductions of 79% to 86% lower than petroleum diesel. Data year: 2022.

Three of those four steps use published external figures: the DGE factor, the diesel emissions factor, and the lifecycle reduction. Only the biodiesel yield in step one is a working assumption, not a cited figure.

Be aware of what the 86% choice does. 86% is the top of the published 79 to 86% band, and that band covers three waste feedstocks together, not used cooking oil on its own. Running the same math at the low end of the range gives about 15.6 lbs per gallon instead of 17.0, roughly 8% lower. Read every number on this page as a best case, and say so if you publish it.

Equivalency factors

Trees, cars, miles, and gallons of gasoline all come from the same EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies page, 2022 data: 0.060 metric tons CO₂ per urban tree planted per year, 4.29 metric tons CO₂e per passenger vehicle per year, 3.93 × 10^-4 metric tons CO₂e per vehicle mile, and 8.887 × 10^-3 metric tons CO₂ per gallon of gasoline. We convert with 1 metric ton equals 2,204.62 pounds.

Two numbers here are assumptions, not sourced factors

• Biodiesel produced, 0.95 gallons per gallon of UCO. This is a rounded process yield we use for planning. We have not tied it to a specific published figure, so treat it as an approximation rather than a cited factor. Real yield moves with free fatty acid content, water, and the conversion route.
• LCFS credit value at $65 per metric ton. That price is an assumed placeholder, not a quoted market price. CARB publishes the actual monthly credit transfer prices, and they move a great deal. We also simplify by treating one credit as one metric ton of CO₂avoided, where the real LCFS calculation uses a carbon intensity differential times energy content. Most important: LCFS credits are generated and held by the reporting fuel producer, not by the restaurant that generated the oil. The dollar figure illustrates what the carbon reduction is worth in the market. It is not income to you.

Known limitations

• This is an estimate, not a verified emissions inventory. No third party has reviewed your inputs or your result.
• These are avoided emissions from displacing petroleum diesel elsewhere in the economy. They are not a reduction in your own Scope 1 or Scope 2 footprint, and under the GHG Protocol avoided emissions are reported separately from your inventory rather than subtracted from it.
• Actual reduction depends on your oil quality and water content, the refining pathway used, and where the finished fuel ends up.
• The 0.93 diesel-gallon-equivalent factor is DOE's published figure for B100 (transesterified biodiesel). If your UCO is routed to renewable diesel (hydrotreated) instead, its energy content is closer to petroleum diesel, so the true diesel gallons displaced could be higher than this estimate.
• The auto-fill by restaurant type is our own typical-volume table, not survey data. If you know your real gallons, enter them.
• The printable report is a marketing summary of these estimates. Do not submit it as audited data.

Sources

• EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies, Calculations & References
• EPA Overview of the Renewable Fuel Standard Program
• DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center, Fuel Properties Comparison (B100 diesel-gallon-equivalent)
• Xu et al., Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Biodiesel and Renewable Diesel Production in the United States (Environmental Science & Technology, 2022, doi 10.1021/acs.est.2c00289)
• Same study, free full text on PubMed Central (PMC9228054)
• CARB Low Carbon Fuel Standard
• GHG Protocol, Corporate Standards
• CARB Monthly LCFS Credit Transfer Activity Reports (actual credit prices)

Last reviewed: August 18, 2026. Every source link above was checked on that date, and every factor was re-verified against the value published on the source page.