ISO 14046 – Water Footprint

What is it?

The increasing demand for assessing and reporting water footprints and the existence of different methodologies makes it necessary to harmonise and ensure consistency in the assessment and reporting of water footprints.
The assessment of the water footprint :

• Is based on life cycle analysis (ISO 14044).
• Water footprints from different life cycle stages can be added together to represent the resulting water footprint.
• Identifies the potential environmental impact(s) related to water.
• Includes relevant geographical and temporal dimensions.
• Identifies the amount of water consumption and changes in water quality.
• Uses knowledge of hydrology.

To whom is this addressed?

Any company that wishes to monitor and control its water consumption throughout its value chain. Especially aimed at organisations where water consumption is a significant aspect of their production or service processes and who wish to improve the environmental performance of their organisation by minimising water consumption.

Benefits into the market

Facilitates water efficiency and optimisation of water management at product, process and organisational level. It helps to manage the water cycle more efficiently and avoid unnecessary consumption.

Benefits with customers

Be a responsible consumer and demand that companies and governments take care of everyone’s water.

Benefits for the organization’s management

• Assess the magnitude of potential water-related environmental impacts.
• Identify opportunities to reduce potential water-related environmental impacts associated with products at various stages of their life cycle, as well as with processes and organisations.
• Strategic management of water-related risk.
• Facilitate water efficiency and optimisation of water management at product, process and organisational level.
• Inform decision makers in industry, governmental and non-governmental organisations of their potential water-related environmental impacts (e.g. for strategic planning purposes, priority setting, design or re-design of products and processes; decision making on resource investments).
• Provide consistent and reliable information based on scientific evidence for reporting water footprint results.

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