Virtual Water Analysis

CleanMetrics now offers an integrated water footprint solution for many products and industry sectors. Using our standards-based life-cycle inventory database and life-cycle assessment software tools, we can provide reliable and high-quality life-cycle assessments focused on the use of water as a resource.

Why Virtual Water?

Virtual water -- also known as embodied water or the water footprint -- accounts for the direct and indirect water use in the production, delivery and use of a product. It is becoming an increasingly important environmental performance metric along with carbon footprints. Fresh water -- drawn from rivers, lakes and groundwater -- is needed not only to sustain life at a basic level but also to produce the vast array of products and services that we consume.

The World Bank estimates that 67% of fresh water worldwide is consumed by agriculture and 22% by industry. In the United States, 41% of water goes to agriculture, mostly for irrigation, according to the Economist. The share of irrigation water use is 70% in China and 90% in India. At the same time, an increasing proportion of the world's population lives in countries that are chronically short of water. Our dependence on fresh water is rivaled only by our dependence on fossil fuels for energy.

Conserving water and minimizing the water footprint of our products and buildings is a pressing need in the same league as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A life-cycle water footprint analysis of products and buildings is a crucial analytical tool that can help advance the cause of sustainable production and consumption.

Why CleanMetrics?

At CleanMetrics, we have worked on a wide range of commercial projects using life-cycle methods and focused on environmental performance metrics such as carbon footprints. The products we have analyzed and the sectors we have served represent a virtual cross section of the economy. In addition to our life-cycle assessment software tools, we have now developed a life-cycle inventory database that includes cradle-to-gate water use data for many hundreds of products and processes in agriculture and industry, so we are well prepared to tackle the challenge of water footprints. Our mission is to help your business address the challenge of sustainable production and consumption with the best collection of tools, data and expertise.

Our Solutions

We offer a range of solutions depending on your needs and in-house expertise.

• For organizations that are looking for a turn-key solution, we can use our software tools, database and technical expertise to provide a complete end-to-end solution and deliver analytical results tailored for your specific business needs.

• For organizations with internal expertise in life-cycle assessment and environmental footprints of products, we can license our software products with integrated life-cycle inventory database. We can also license our database separately if you have other means of performing the analyses.

 

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