News
Water Footprinting – Managing the World’s Most Precious Resource
29th April 2009
As the planet heats up and the human population continues to grow, the sustainable use of water is becoming one of the most important challenges of our time. All over the world water management is increasingly moving to the forefront public policy and corporate strategy and a methodology is urgently needed to measure, track and manage the prudent use of this ‘Blue Gold.’ dcarbon8 is contributing to the development of a standard methodology in water footprinting to facilitate water management.
Water is now regarded as a critical part of sustainable corporate performance accounting. As a result, dcarbon8 has been conducting significant research into water footprinting and its associated issues. Until now, companies have been conducting Life Cycle Assessments, principally concerned with broader environmental impact assessment or measuring greenhouse gas emission within supply chains. Typically, this is as part of mandatory regulations and increasing market concerns over environmental impacts, carbon emissions and the impact on climate change.
Water resources are becoming increasingly vulnerable. This is caused by a combination of increasing human populations and demand for water, and variations in climatic weather patterns, companies and industries that are reliant on water are being forced to readdress the way they operate.
Water footprinting is an emerging concept which seeks to measure the impact of consumption on water resources. This concept was founded by Allen (1993), further developed by Hoekstra and Hung (2002) and elaborated by Chapagain and Hoekstra (2004, 2007). The water footprint is defined as ‘an indicator of water use that looks not only at direct water use of a consumer or producer, but also at the indirect water use.’ In identifying direct and indirect uses, water has been categorized into three types:
• Blue Water – surface and ground water
• Green Water – rainwater and soil moisture
• Grey Water – required water for dilution of wastewater to acceptable concentrations for receiving waters
By calculating water use under these three types throughout the entire supply chain, the water footprint of a product, business or service can be measured. Various beverage companies such as Coca Cola and brewery SABMiller, have recognised that not only their operations, but also their supplies depend and impact on natural water systems. As a result, they are already taking the matter into their own hands, measuring and influencing their water footprint.
At present however, there is no uniform methodology for measurement as no internationally established formula and product label yet exists. Some methodologies address solely the actual water use within the supply chain; others look at it in relation to the water availability at the point of abstraction or discharge within the area. Increasingly, interest is also focusing on the impact that the water use is having on local ecosystems and biodiversity, public health and social equity issues in the areas of abstraction and discharge. Both are extremely complex issues that are specific to the individual watershed.
The Water Footprint Network (WFN) is a group working to develop standardised methodologies for implementing water footprinting, which would facilitate accreditation and the associated market competition. It is currently made up of various partners who include, amongst others: Global Footprint Network, IFC, PEPSICO, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, WWF, EAWAG, Pacific Institute and USAID. In addition, the network is raising awareness and promoting the use of water footprinting to influence companies and governments to protect fresh water systems and ensure better water governance from ecological and social perspectives.
Alongside the WFN is the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), which consists of Nature Conservancy, Pacific Institute, Water Stewardship Initiative, WWF, Water Witness and Water Environment Federation. This group of organisations work with water users and managers to define water stewardship standards and develop a branded accreditation programme for those that meet standards. It is envisaged that water footprinting tool (developed by WFN) will be a key element which the AWS will use to provide management options to reduce risks based on justified trade offs between social, economic and environmental objectives.
Offsetting mechanisms, similar to those in used in carbon footprinting are expected to follow as a way of achieving ‘water neutrality’. The idea behind this concept is that businesses will reduce the footprint as far as reasonably possible and then offset the remaining water consumption and pollution by investing in projects that promote sustainable use of water within the watershed that is affected. Such schemes could include investing in closed loop systems which recycle water, facilitating groundwater recharge through soakwells or investing into sustainable water supplies; however, critical questions regarding how this is quantified remain unanswered.
In the future it will be interesting to see how localised and regionalised water issues will demarcate where industries and certain agriculture are located and how this will influence global and national trading.
It is evident that water scarcity is an issue which has the potential to threaten industries and businesses severely. The tools for measurement, reduction, offsetting and accreditation are being developed but are still their infancy. With more practice and experience it is likely that these will be refined. dcarbon8 is currently working to develop in-house measurement and management tools, in line with WFN and AWS, in order to offer water footprinting as part of our suite of sustainability management services.
Please contact Maeve Hall at dcarbon8 for more information: maeve@dcarbon8.com