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Global warming, caused mainly by increased worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, is currently one of the greatest threats to the environment and human societies. Mexico has set an ambitious goal of reducing 30% of its greenhouse gases emissions by year 2020. The sugar agroindustry has been identified as one of the opportunities for mitigating emissions in this country. The aim of this work is to contribute towards identifying policy measures and practices for low-carbon sugar production by assessing the carbon footprint of sugar produced in four sugar mills in Mexico using a life cycle assessment method. System boundaries include agricultural practices, sugarcane harvesting, cane milling and sugar conversion. The results show that sugar production has carbon footprint values in the range of 0.45–0.63 kg CO₂e/kg sugar. In these four cases, the agricultural stage contributes the majority of carbon …