Water footprint
A water footprint assessment can assist in:
a) assessing the magnitude of potential environmental impacts related to water;
b) identifying opportunities to reduce water related potential environmental impacts associated with products at various stages in their life cycle as well as processes and organizations;
c) strategic risk management related to water;
d) facilitating water efficiency and optimization of water management at product, process and organizational levels;
e) informing decision-makers in industry, government or non-governmental organizations of their potential environmental impacts related to water (e.g. for the purpose of strategic planning, priority setting, product or process design or redesign, decisions about investment of resources);
f) providing consistent and reliable information, based on scientific evidence for reporting water footprint results.
A water footprint assessment alone is insufficient to be used to describe the overall potential environmental impacts of products, processes or organizations.
The water footprint assessment according to this International Standard can be conducted and reported as a stand-alone assessment, where only impacts related to water are assessed, or as part of a life cycle assessment, where consideration is given to a comprehensive set of environmental impacts and not only impacts related to water.
In the International Standard, the term “water footprint” is only used when it is the result of an impact assessment. The specific scope of the water footprint assessment is defined by the users of this International Standard in accordance with its requirements.
