A growing number of companies are taking steps to reduce their water footprint.

The term – an emerging measure describing the amount of water used to produce goods and services – is similar to a carbon footprint and aims to foster a greater awareness of environmental impact.

Consumers have pushed for water footprint disclosure as an indicator of a company’s sustainability commitment, especially in an apparel-heavy industry like promo that tends to use high amounts of water in its production.

“They want to know where it’s produced, how it’s produced,” says Mesfin Mekonnen, an assistant professor at The University of Alabama who studies global water use. “Businesses have to look beyond their company and try to reduce or improve their water sustainability.”

What Is a Water Footprint?

A water footprint can be measured for both individual items, like a single T-shirt, as well as businesses and countries. It can be broken down into three parts – green, blue and gray water:

• Green: water stemming from precipitation stored in the soil’s roots that’s evaporated, transpired or incorporated by plants
  
  
• Blue: fresh water from lakes, rivers and aquifers
  
  
• Gray: wastewater from household sources such as showers, sinks and washing machines that don’t contain sewage or industrial waste

A water footprint includes direct and indirect water use from the supply chain to the end-user. Companies can look at it retroactively to show transparency in how much water was used in a given timeframe and as a tool to predict the amount of water required to produce all goods and services.

Other factors in a water footprint are tracking where water comes from and taking temporal variation into account. Water scarcity can change seasonally, and importing water-intensive goods puts pressure on water resources in the exporting regions, Mekonnen says.

“A company may be importing from another country where the water management is not that good,” he says. “At a certain point they may lose that source country or source location, so they have to look beyond their company and try to reduce or improve their water sustainability.”

Mekonnen adds that only looking at a water footprint without proper context or other environmental impact measures may be misleading. One company may source less water from an area with poor water management, which could be worse than another company sourcing more water from an area with more abundant resources, he says. A water footprint is harder to take at face value than something like a carbon footprint because carbon emissions tend to be more standardized and comparable.

How Can Companies Reduce Their Water Footprint?

Agriculture uses 70% of the world’s fresh water – the most of any major industry. This means raw materials like cotton and wool, which are often used in apparel, are big contributors to global water consumption.

Last year, apparel and headwear took five of the top 10 spots for promo products by overall sales, according to ASI Research. T-shirts, which have been a top product for years, were the highest-selling item, amassing about 16% of overall sales.

“The apparel industry is one of the dirtiest industries in the world,” says Laura Smith, product and sustainability manager at certified B Corp Storm Creek (asi/89879). “It’s just critical that you take one of the dirtiest industries and really look for ways to clean it up.”

The MN-based apparel supplier uses recycled materials and partners with bluesign, a sustainability certification company aiming to eliminate harmful substances from the manufacturing process to ensure safety for employees, consumers and the environment. Bluesign audits production sites to reduce water consumption and minimize untreated wastewater that could harm ecosystems and local communities, according to its guiding principles.

Promo companies can also take steps to reduce their water consumption by looking at their supply chain and working with manufacturers that use efficient equipment, recycle and reuse water, and monitor water use. They can also prioritize durability in their products to reduce consumer waste and recommend washing products less often and in cold water in product care guidelines, which increases energy efficiency and shrinks excess water use.

“Water is one of the most important resources that we have,” Smith says. “We’ve got a responsibility as one of those major water users and polluters to reduce the water consumption and ensure clean chemical products are used because the technology is there.”

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