ISO 14046 - Water Footprint

Water Footprint represents direct and indirect water consumption for a product, service or a production activity of an organisation.
Its reporting, in accordance with ISO 14046, identifies the elements that contribute the most to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) by allowing you to define the strategies for reducing this consumption, in order to:

• constantly monitor the water consumption associated with your products and services, or your organisation
• identify improvement strategies by identifying the most critical elements in terms of water consumption
• leverage the image and the environmental profile of your company
• benefit from a more transparent relationship with customers.

Service Details

Water Footprint verification is based on four indicators:

• availability of water resources in quantitative terms
• availability in qualitative terms (e.g. unavailability of water because it is polluted)
• time factors (availability over time)
• spatial factors (availability in the reference territory).

Verification Procedure

• compilation and submission of the questionnaire for the formulation of the offer
• documentary verification: strategic analysis, risk analysis, evaluation of the inventory, data collection methods, calculation methodologies, communication
• process verification: on-site verification of data acquisition and modelling of calculations performed within the software used for the analysis
• reporting: writing of verification report and preparation of draft verification opinion
• independent file review and decision (following the completion of the verification review, a decision is made whether or not to confirm the organisation's study).

Why RINA?

RINA has a long-running experience in the LCA analysis (Life Cycle Assessment), which is the basis for the Water Footprint, Carbon Footprints and the Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) reporting.

Q&A

When is the term water footprint applicable?
According to ISO 14046, a company can claim to have reported its water footprint when it has analysed all the associated markers, and not just some of them. By the same token, it must specify the type of the indicators analysed.

What are the possible indicators of the water footprint?
Some possible indicators mentioned in the standard are: water footprint scarcity, water footprint availability, water eutrophication footprint, water ecotoxicity footprint, water acidification footprint.

Does the standard also define requirements for the communication part?
No, ISO 14046 only regulates the quantification aspects. However, a third party report is foreseen.