This paper reviews the concept of water footprinting as a method of quantifying the water use in manufacturing and industrial processing, and the benefits of using water footprinting are described. The challenges facing the UK in terms of water management in the future are also discussed. Ceram’s observations from working with brick and ceramics manufacturers are noted. Courtesy of Lucideon.
Original Title
Calculating a Water Footprint - The Benefits for Your Business
This paper reviews the concept of water footprinting as a method of quantifying the water use in manufacturing and industrial processing, and the benefits of using water footprinting are described. The challenges facing the UK in terms of water management in the future are also discussed. Ceram’s observations from working with brick and ceramics manufacturers are noted. Courtesy of Lucideon.
This paper reviews the concept of water footprinting as a method of quantifying the water use in manufacturing and industrial processing, and the benefits of using water footprinting are described. The challenges facing the UK in terms of water management in the future are also discussed. Ceram’s observations from working with brick and ceramics manufacturers are noted. Courtesy of Lucideon.
This work by Lucideon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
by Lucideon 2
INTRODUCTION Water supplies in many parts of the world are classified as stressed where demand exceeds the resources available. Although this issue is usually associated with heavily populated regions with limited rainfall (e.g. western USA and the Middle East), it is also becoming increasingly common in areas where rainfall is relatively plentiful, particularly in developing nations where rising and increasingly urban populations combine with economic growth to create huge water demands from industry and agriculture. In extreme cases this could result in genuine water shortages, and at the very least, excessive abstraction which can lead to the deterioration of natural habitats and loss of biodiversity. Changes to rainfall patterns as a result of Climate Change are likely to exacerbate this issue in the future, and result in new areas of water stress. Many European counties, and some regions of the UK already have water supplies that are classified as stressed; areas of south and south east England have lower rainfall per capita than many Mediterranean countries. High population density and agriculture place huge demands upon water resources. A number of future water stress projections have been made; Figure 1 is a typical example. The areas of stress in Africa, the Middle East and Indian sub-continent will not be surprising, however it is concerning to observe that large areas of the UK have been given a moderate and high stress rating, with the SE rated as extreme stress.
Figure 1. Predicted Global Water Stress Indicators i
The increasing demands on the UKs water resources have been recognised by the Government; the recent Defra white paper Water for Life ii outlines the proposals to ensure adequate future supplies. Much of the supporting evidence for the paper comes from an Environment Agency (EA) ii study around water availability. The EA report established: - It is likely that water supplies to some parts of the UK are threatened - Business as usual is not sustainable - There must be a greater emphasis on managing water demand
The Water for Life paper highlights the need for major investment in new infrastructure in order to cope with the predicted and increasingly variable rainfall patterns; additional reservoirs and the capacity to transfer water between regions will We think of water of free, falling from the sky in abundance. It is only when rivers start to run dry, reservoirs fall low, cracks emerge in the ground that the old certainties are shaken. These are warning signs of what we might expect to see in a changing climate. The Rt. Hon. Caroline Spelman MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, December 2011 ii
by Lucideon 3 be required. Significant reforms are also needed for the abstraction licensing regime that was developed in the 1960s, when environmental concerns were a low priority. Increased restrictions and conditions will be attached to future abstraction consents. A principal conclusion from the paper explains that water is unlikely to be regarded as it is today, a cheap and freely available resource; prices will increase and there could be supply restrictions in some parts of the UK. LIKELY IMPACTS ON UK MANUFACTURING Electricity generation is the largest user of water in the UK; supplies are directly abstracted from major rivers and/or the sea. The water is primarily used for cooling, and apart from some small evaporative losses, all of the water is returned to source. To prevent environmental damage, strict limits are placed on the temperature of the returned water. Climate change and low rainfall can impact upon power generation: in 2003, the French nuclear industry iv , which relies heavily on abstracted river water for cooling, was severely affected by an exceptionally hot summer; the low river levels and high water temperatures resulted in insufficient cooling and the temporary closure of 17 reactors.
Water is used in many manufacturing operations, and although the total cost of water may be relatively small, it is a vital raw material. Within the food, drink and paper making sectors, water is a significant and costly manufacturing resource, especially if the water is extracted from the public supply network. Future cost increases and/or restrictions on abstraction licenses would have a considerable impact on water intensive businesses. However, other manufacturers relying upon water for their processes could also encounter implications; supply disruptions can interrupt production in extreme cases. WHAT WILL THE FUTURE HOLD? Water for Life discusses the future challenges facing the UK: balancing the competing demands of protecting the environment whilst ensuring adequate and affordable future supplies. The scale of these challenges is likely to increase as the impacts of Climate Change are realised. It is apparent that there will be changes to the future abstraction licensing regime, with greater weight given to the environmental impacts associated with over-abstraction. Novel schemes such as tradable licenses have already been suggested. For industrial consumers of mains water, proposals have been put forward to increase the supply competition for large consumers, those who use more than 5,000m 3 /year. Although this may well result in lower prices in the short term, in the long term prices will rise given the large investment programmes planned by the water utilities. A consistent thread throughout the paper is the importance of greater water efficiency. Domestic customers will be encouraged to adopt sustainable water utilisation habits; this will be introduced through a combination of awareness campaigns and greater domestic appliance labelling. For the industrial user of mains water, it is envisaged that water companies will become more proactive in encouraging water efficiency in response to a more competitive market where demand reduction advice will be an added value service. This may be an optimistic assumption based on the experience of the deregulated UK energy market where price is the main driver, with little evidence of energy suppliers offering energy efficiency advice to industrial customers. In the context of sustainability, water is becoming an increasingly high profile issue with a number of companies now including water consumption as part of their overall sustainability report. It is not surprising that high profile, water intensive businesses such as Coca-Cola and the brewing group SABMiller have made disclosures about their water use; retailers (e.g. Marks and Spencer and John Lewis) are beginning to follow suit and take the issue seriously. Increasingly, these large companies are making demands upon their supply chain to disclose information about their water use. With increasing recognition of the environmental impacts of the built environment and the greater use of whole lifecycle approaches to buildings, manufacturers of construction products are - On average nearly 43 billion litres of water per day is abstracted from UK rivers, lakes and boreholes; 40% is for public water supply and 43% for electricity generation. - The average person uses approximately 150 litres of water per day. - About 25% of the water entering the public supply network is lost through leaks.
by Lucideon 4 coming under increasing pressure to disclose the quantity of water associated with the manufacture of their products. In the UK, BREs Green Guide scheme v is the accepted assessment for sustainability of construction materials and products. Under this scheme, products are classified according to a ranking system where A+ has the least environmental impact and E the greatest. The impacts are assessed under a whole lifecycle approach against 13 criteria; one of which is water extraction. With this in mind, manufacturers will need an accurate picture of their water usage when looking to achieve a Green Guide rating.
All of these facts indicate a need for businesses to develop a greater understanding of their water consumption: how it is used, where it is used, and the quantity used. Without this fundamental information, progress cannot be made in managing this vital resource; exposing businesses to the risks associated with price rises and supply restrictions. Developing a water footprint is an ideal first step towards water management. WHAT IS A WATER FOOTPRINT? A water footprint provides a comprehensive water consumption audit of a business, product or an individual consumer. A business footprint is calculated as an index related to output, and is expressed in terms of m 3 of water per tonne, or alternatively through another unit of output. A detailed footprint can include a full cradle to grave lifecycle analysis and consider all possible water inputs including the embedded water consumption associated with raw materials. The calculation provides a clear and meaningful water consumption statement by which a business is able to benchmark against for future improvement measurements. There are numerous guidance notes, procedures and protocols for developing a water footprint; the difficulty lies with developing a generic methodology that can be applied to a wide variety of scenarios. ISO 14046 is currently in development and is likely to become the accepted international standard for developing a water footprint to ensure that all footprints are calculated to a consistent standard. The standard will also define how the different types of water sources (e.g. mains or abstracted) and discharges should be considered, and how the context of local environmental and socio- economic conditions should be taken into account. With the need to manage water resources more effectively, combined with the increasing pressures to report sustainability indicators, businesses can derive a number of benefits from conducting a water footprinting. The exercise can: identify cost reduction opportunities, provide a benchmark, and demonstrate a clear commitment to environmental management in support of corporate sustainability claims and credentials. CALCULATING A WATER FOOTPRINT Calculating the full lifecycle water footprint of a manufacturing business, including the embedded water of the raw materials can be an extremely complex and time consuming exercise. Suppliers are often unable to provide information about their products as water footprinting is a relatively new concept. The situation becomes more complicated if the end product consumes water (e.g. a washing machine). With situations of this ilk, much of the data is estimated and hence an incomplete picture given; the footprint is therefore of questionable value. A more pragmatic approach is for manufacturers to consider just the water footprint of their own operation (i.e. the factory boundary); the base information for the footprint would be a compilation of all the water inputs and outputs over a given time period (e.g. 12 months). This approach is illustrated in Figure 2: all the possible water inputs and outputs for a hypothetical ceramics manufacturer. In this example, the water inputs associated with raw clay materials are significant; one of the major water outputs is evaporation during the firing and drying processes. The drivers for increasing disclosure have been recognised by some industry sectors, for example the precast concrete manufacturers in the UK have been reporting their collective water consumption (as one of a number of sustainability KPIs) since 2006. The average mains water consumption in the industry has fallen from 108.5 litres/tonne of finished product in 2008 to 99.4.litres/tonne in 2010. Source: British Precast vi
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Figure 2. Components of a Product Water Footprint
The usual approach is to then express the footprint as a production metric, e.g. litres of water per tonne of product. This is a relatively simple exercise and can provide a high level performance benchmark which can serve to show the importance of water to the business, especially if the footprint is expressed in terms of the cost, as well as the volume of water. This exercise often highlights the true cost of water to a business, including both the purchase cost of mains water and trade effluent charges. However, a more detailed disaggregated water footprint would be much more useful, it allows comparisons to be made between different products and manufacturing lines within the same factory. A major barrier in developing a more detailed picture is a lack of data; many businesses rely on a single water meter on the main supply and sub-meters are often scarce. Where meters do exist, they are often read infrequently. A more detailed water balance can be developed through conducting some simple measurements; a bucket and stop watch can yield very useful information, and more sophisticated approaches using portable non- invasive flow meters are extremely valuable. In a number of manufacturing processes, the product moisture content is a key production parameter and held within strict limits, in these circumstances water flows can be calculated from production data. From these various data sources, a detailed water balance for the site, production line or product can be compiled. This is often represented in the form of a Sankey diagram (reference Figure 3) which gives an immediate picture of the relative sizes of the various water inputs and outputs, highlighting the priority areas.
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Figure 3. Sankey Diagram of the Water Balance in Ceramics Manufacturing
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF WATER FOOTPRINTING Lucideon has calculated several water footprints for brick and ceramic manufacturers. The quarried raw materials used by these manufacturers frequently possess varied moisture contents upon delivery, thus representing a major water input. Water is integral to most ceramic manufacturing processes where the clay body is moulded or shaped. These operations only operate efficiently if the clay body has a predictable and consistent plasticity, which is directly related to water content of the body; moisture content is a key production parameter, and is usually closely monitored and controlled. Some businesses have already realised the importance of water in their manufacturing processes: Johnson Tiles have invested in a recycling and collection system, saving the company approximately 30,000m 3 of water per annum. In general, brick manufacturers do not require high quality mains water for their manufacturing processes; efforts are made to substitute this with water drawn from their quarrying operations. Although each manufacturing site is different in terms of their raw materials, processes, products and the water use, a number of general observations can be made: - Billing is frequently confusing; water companies take infrequent meter readings and estimate the majority of bills. In many cases, businesses pay bills without checking them against actual meter readings. - Compared to energy and raw materials, water is relatively low cost, however the full picture does reveal some hidden and less obvious costs associated with water. Trade effluent charges can be higher on a per m 3 basis than the cost of mains water and where there are losses due to evaporation in a drying or firing operation, there is an associated energy cost. - Data collection and analysis is relatively poor, even where meters are read on a regular basis, data is often not analysed. In these situations, historic data was used to calculate the monthly specific water consumption in terms of m 3 per tonne. Performance was highly variable; at one site the worst monthly performance was 60% greater than the best without any obvious explanation. This indicates a lack of control and the potential for significant savings through tighter management. - Where there are multiple products and unit operations, it is generally more difficult to accurately compile a water balance. In some cases less than 50% of the site water consumption could be accounted for. In these
by Lucideon 7 situations, without adequate sub-metering it will be very difficult to implement a successful water management programme. Although these observations are derived from brick and ceramic manufacturers, the lessons learnt can be applied to many other manufacturing sectors. CONCLUSIONS The recent Government white paper Water for Life has highlighted the growing importance of water as a sustainability issue for business; the current perception that water is a cheap and almost limitless resource will have to change. Increasing demands due to population growth, mounting concerns around the health of river eco-systems and the impacts of climate change will all put pressure on our water supplies. Investment in a new water infrastructure will inevitably feed through into higher prices for consumers of mains water, along with future restrictions associated with abstraction licenses. In many respects, the concerns around water are following those around carbon. All businesses are aware of how carbon has leapt up the corporate agenda in the past decade; it is apparent there will be strong drivers to reduce future water demand. Water footprinting is an ideal tool to: - Understand how water is used in a business - Gain an insight into how a water reduction strategy can be developed. Currently there is no standard methodology for water footprinting; however an ISO standard is under development. Although this is likely to be a very comprehensive approach to developing a cradle to grave footprint, practical experience has shown that at present most manufacturing businesses will struggle with this approach due to a lack of available data. Initially, a more pragmatic approach can be adopted; developing a water footprint that is restricted to a defined factory boundary, and expressing water consumption in terms of litres per unit of output. This will highlight the issue and provide a baseline for more detailed investigation, and ultimately identification of water saving opportunities. REFERENCES i Centre for Environmental Systems Research http://www.usf.uni- kassel.de/cesr/index.php?option=com_project&t ask=view_detail&agid=39&lang=en ii Water for Life, Defra, Dec 2011 http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/quality/water/legis lation/whitepaper iii The case for change current and future water availability, Environment Agency http://publications.environment- agency.gov.uk/PDF/GEHO1111BVEP-E-E.pdf iv France faces nuclear power crisis, The Guardian, Aug 2003 www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/aug/13/france.i nternationalnews?INTCMP=SRCH v BRE Global Ltd www.bre.co.uk/greenguide vi British Precast http://www.britishprecast.org/sustainableprecast /downloads/downloads.php
by Lucideon
ABOUT LUCIDEON
Lucideon is a leading international provider of materials development, testing and assurance. Through its offices and laboratories in the UK, US and the Far East, Lucideon provides materials and assurance expertise to clients in a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, construction, ceramics and power engineering. The company aims to improve the competitive advantage and profitability of its clients by providing them with the expertise, accurate results and objective, innovative thinking that they need to optimise their materials, products, processes, systems and businesses.