Water Footprint

The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.

The increasing consumption of water and overuse of aquatic systems has already resulted in a dramatic deterioration of aquatic ecosystems worldwide. This disruption has lead to a shortage of freshwater availability in some regions of the world.

Manage your Water Footprint

The consequences of overuse will be multilayered ranging from supply drop outs to significantly higher prices for potable water. This means companies need to especially manage their water footprint - the risk of high direct water consumption at their own sites and indirect water consumption in their supply chains.

Benefits

Analyze the direct and indirect water consumption of your organization or products.

Identify Water Footprint risks and develop mitigation strategies

Optimize the water footprint and reduce associated environmental impacts.

Reduce costs in your supply chain and increase resource efficiency

Improve internal and external environmental communication with reliable information.

Display success in environmental performance management and responsibility.

Water risk for business Considering and mitigating the water footprint of your business is a way to reduce risk. Physical risk: companies may increasingly face freshwater shortage in their supply chain or own operations. Reputational risk: the corporate image of a company will be damaged when questions arise among the public about whether the company properly addresses issues of sustainable and equitable water use. Regulatory risk: governmental interference and regulation in the area of water use will undoubtedly increase. Financial risk: above risks may translate into increased costs and/or reduced revenues. Water opportunity for business Risks can turn into an opportunity for those companies that proactively respond to the challenge of global freshwater scarcity. Frontrunners that create product transparency before others do, that formulate specific and measurable targets with respect to water footprint reduction, with special attention to areas where problems of water scarcity and pollution are most critical, and that can demonstrate actual improvements, can turn this into a competitive advantage.

Corporate social responsibility

Reducing the water footprint should be part of the environmental strategy of a business, just like reducing the carbon footprint. Addressing the issues of freshwater scarcity and pollution is part of the corporate social responsibility.

Water footprint: one global standard

A shared standard on definitions and calculation methods is crucial given the rapidly growing interest in companies and governments to use water footprint accounts as a basis for formulating sustainable water strategies and policies. The water footprint is an effective tool only when used in a rigid manner, not when used as a metaphor. The water footprint calculation standard is contained in the Water Footprint Assessment Manual.

What’s new for companies?

• Companies have traditionally focussed on water use in their operations, not in their supply-chain. The water footprint does take an integrated approach. Most companies will discover that their supply-chain water footprint is much larger than their operational water footprint. As a result, companies may conclude that it is more cost effective to shift investments from efforts to reduce their operational water use to efforts to reduce their supply-chain water footprint and associated risks.
• Companies have traditionally looked at reduction of water withdrawals. The water footprint shows water use not in terms of withdrawal but in terms of consumptive water use. Return flows can be reused, so it makes sense to specifically look at consumptive use.
• Companies make sure that they have a water use right or license. Having that is not sufficient to manage water-related risks. It is useful to look into the spatiotemporal details of a company’s water footprint, because details on where and when water is used can be used as input to a detailed water footprint sustainability assessment, to identify the environmental, social and economic impacts and to find out associated business risks.
• Companies have traditionally looked at meeting emission standards. The grey water footprint looks at the required water volume for assimilating waste based on ambient water quality standards. Meeting emission standards is one thing, but looking at how effluents actually result in reduced assimilation capacity of ambient freshwater bodies and at business risks associated to that is another thing.

What can your company do?

Your company can reduce its operational water footprint by saving water in its own operations and bringing water pollution to zero. Keywords are: reduce, recycle and treat before disposal. The operational water footprint can generally brought back to nearly zero. For most businesses, however, the supply-chain water footprint is much larger than the operation footprint. It is therefore crucial that your company address that as well. Achieving improvements in the supply chain may be more difficult – because not under direct control – but they may be more effective.

Your company can cut its supply-chain water footprint by making supply agreements with certain standards with its suppliers or by simply changing to another supplier. In many cases it probably means quite something, because the whole business model may need to be transformed in order to incorporate or better control supply chains and to make supply chains fully transparent to consumers. Among the various alternative or supplementary tools that can help improving transparency are: setting quantitative water-footprint reduction targets, benchmarking, product labelling, certification and water footprint reporting.