Lifecycle Carbon Assessment of Large-Scale IoT Deployments in India: When Do Sensors Pay Back Their Embedded Emissions?

As India accelerates its digital transformation under the “Digital India” and “Smart Cities” missions, the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) devices is projected to reach 2 billion by 2030. While these technologies promise operational efficiencies—from precision agriculture in the Indo-Gangetic plains to industrial automation in Gujarat—their “embedded carbon” footprint remains largely unquantified in the Indian context. This paper presents a cradle-to-gate Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) of IoT sensor nodes manufactured and deployed within India, specifically analysing the carbon debt incurred by domestic supply chains versus the operational savings in India’s carbon-intensive energy grid. By synthesizing 2024-2025 LCA data for Indian-manufactured PCBs, locally assembled solar units, and imported silicon components, we calculate the “Carbon Payback Period” (CPP) for three critical Indian scenarios: solar-powered irrigation in Bihar, industrial motor monitoring in Maharashtra, and flood warning systems in the Northeast. Our analysis reveals that in India’s coal-dominant grid (0.727 kg CO₂e/kWh), industrial IoT nodes achieve carbon neutrality in as little as 3.8 days, whereas agricultural sensors replacing diesel pumps (2.68 kg CO₂e/L) achieve payback in 11.2 days. These findings provide the first India-specific quantitative framework for “Net Zero IoT,” advocating for domestic recycling protocols to reduce the embodied carbon of the next billion connected devices.