There has been growing concern over the role of business and industry in the water scarcity challenge.

The specific issues created by international commerce and virtual water have led to an explosion of activity around water management, and so-called "water footprints" in particular.

A recent review by IGD, the food and grocery industry group in the U.K., found more than 60 organizations addressing water-related topics, many of these focused exclusively on water footprints. 

But what is a water footprint and why is all of this activity necessary?

As part of Kimberly-Clark's comprehensive sustainability efforts, we have been monitoring and managing the water use in our operations for several years.  Since 1995, we have reduced direct water use in our operations by more than 26 million cubic meters.  As discussions around water management and assessment have evolved over the last few years, we have been following the dialogue closely. The first thing we noticed is that the term water footprint means different things to the various organizations using the term.

Some refer to the total direct operational water use of an organization as its water footprint (more recently the term Scope 1 water has been adopted from the parlance of greenhouse gas accounting).  Others refer to a similar accounting for a nation or region (e.g., a U.S. state) as a water footprint.  Finally, several organizations, including Kimberly-Clark, consider the water associated with all of the activity within some defined boundary of the product life cycle as the water footprint.

Information on water can take many forms. Blue water, green water, grey water, water use, water consumption, net water, virtual water, water offsets -- this can be a confusing domain at the moment. We have achieved some clarity by focusing on trying to understand the dependence of our products on the continued availability of freshwater, in terms of their production, use and disposal.