All the elements of water footprinting now available
Water footprinting requires a detailed water modelling approach and the use of specialised impact assessment methods and data. The methodology for calculating a water footprint has been available for some time now, but the first regionalised inventory database has only just been released. ISO 14046, the standard on water footprinting, was only released in 2014. Now, all the building blocks to calculate a proper water footprint are available in SimaPro.
An important consideration when it comes to reducing your water footprint is where the water comes from. Using a litre of water in the Netherlands has a very different environmental impact than using a litre of water in Ethiopia. A water footprint allows you to assess your company’s impact on water scarcity: not just how much water you use, but also its quality and local availability.
Calculating water footprints with SimaPro
SimaPro allows you to identify regions with high water stress, pinpoint business activities that cause significant water impacts and compare scenarios for reducing your water use impacts. You can calculate your water footprints on an organisational level or a product level.
SimaPro has a wide range of water footprint impact assessment methods, both on midpoint and endpoint level. This allows you to select the method that best suits your needs and to do sensitivity checks with other methods. Detailed water flows on a regional level allow you to do the precision modelling needed to get a detailed result.