EcoWater report - Comparing water footprint methods: The importance of a life cycle approach in assesing water footprint

Today many people are suffering because of water scarcity, and still, water scarcity is supposed to be a growing problem. Water footprint is a tool developed to assess impact related to water use and consider both water consumption and degradation. This study aims to compare two such water footprint methods, the H2Oe-method and the WFN method, and identify the different hotspots for water use in a supply chain at Volvo Trucks. The overall result of the first method, the H2Oe-method, was 2.6 Mm³ H2Oe while the result for the second method, the WFN-method, was 13.1 Mm3. The largest contribution to water footprint for the first method was the degradative part, mainly from the background process of a precipitation chemical. The second method had the largest contribution from water consumption in the use electricity. The results show the importance of a life cycle perspective when calculating water footprint and the difficulties to compare water footprint calculated with different methods. This report is only available in English.