Water Footprint of Organizations – how to measure a company's water use impacts beyond the gates

90% of freshwater use is associated with the life cycles of products and services, i.e. mainly transboundary production networks. Since water resources are not subjected to global governance, innovative perspectives to assess... [ view full abstract ]

90% of freshwater use is associated with the life cycles of products and services, i.e. mainly transboundary production networks. Since water resources are not subjected to global governance, innovative perspectives to assess and mitigate water-related environmental burdens in a cross-boundary setting are needed. We argue that the organizational level (companies, non-governmental organizations, public administrations) is the appropriate decisional unit, since organizations are responsible for and have influence on their supply chain, independently of the location of single activities.

Various approaches to assess companies’ water use (Carbon Disclosure Project Water Program, the Water Risk Filter, WBCSD Global Water Tool, CEO Water Mandate, etc.) have found broad application over the last decade. However, their focus is mainly on on-site water use – thus neglecting global supply chains. Moreover, most tools remain on the volumetric level und, thus, lack a quantification of environmental impacts. To overcome these drawbacks, we develop the Organizational Water Footprint approach, able to: i) consider the whole value chain of products and services, thus including suppliers, the organization’s activities, the use and end-of-life phase, in order to avoid burden shifting; ii) include capital goods and supporting activities such as administration usually neglected in Product Water Footprints iii) consider local impacts by means of established scientific impact assessment methods; iv) build upon recognized international standards.

For method development the Organizational Life Cycle Assessment framework (see ISO 14072, further specified in the UNEP Guidance on Organizational Life Cycle Assessment) and the Product Water Footprint method as in ISO 14046 (assuring methodological flexibility and case-specific application along with the reliability of the standard’s framework) serve as starting points. Specific requirements of water-related assessments are addressed: 1) organizational activities with high potential water-related impacts are identified and specific guidance for setting system boundaries is provided, to avoid critical processes being overlooked; 2) the applicability of diverse Life-Cycle-Assessment-based water-related impact assessment methods originally developed for product water footprint within the framework of ISO 14046 is proofed for the case of organizations; 3) advice based on previous experience of organizations with other water-related assessment tools is provided, thus maximizing synergies with available practices and facilitating the application of the new method.  

This presentation will: i) introduce the overarching challenge of freshwater availability and the organizational level as a suitable decisional unit; ii) highlight strengths and weaknesses of existing methodological frameworks for assessing water use in organizations; iii) illustrate three milestones of the Organizational Water Footprint: 1) hotspots-based system boundary definition, 2) water-related impact assessment methods adapted to organizations, 3) experience-based application pathways. We are looking forward to discussing the new method with other conference participants and profiting from their valuable feedback.