Measuring Your Water Footprint: What’s Next in Water Strategy

BY ARJEN Y. HOEKSTRA, UNIVERSITY OF TWENTE

The water footprint of a business is measured by considering two elements: the company’s operations and its supply chain.

The first measurement looks at the direct freshwater use — the amount of freshwater used within the business itself. The supply chain water footprint refers to the indirect freshwater use — the water used to produce all the goods and services that form the input of the business.

A water footprint carries three components: blue, green and gray. The blue water footprint is the volume of freshwater that evaporated from the global blue water resources (surface and groundwater); the green water footprint is the volume of water evaporated from the global green water resources (rainwater stored in the soil); and the gray water footprint is the volume of polluted water associated with the production of goods and services.

The water footprint is a geographically explicit indicator, showing not only volumes of water use and pollution, but also the locations.