Abstract
Considering that 4 billion people are living in water-stressed regions and that global water consumption is predicted to increase continuously [...]
Highlights
A few years later, water was an emerging field of research in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which aimed at assessing local impacts of water consumption and pollution in combination with those of greenhouse gas emissions, land use changes, etc. [3,4]
The methodological enhancements and relevance of global freshwater use has led to the development of an international Water Footprint (WF) standard (ISO 14046) which specifies principles, requirements and guidelines related to WF analyses of products, processes and organizations [28]
First and foremost, WF and LCA share the same goal: the achievement of sustainable water consumption along the value chains of products and services. Both WF and LCA start with volumetric accounting and add a subsequent impact assessment step—the difference is the focus on volumes (WF) or impacts (LCA), which doesn’t mean that the other part is meaningless
Summary
A few years later, water was an emerging field of research in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which aimed at assessing local impacts of water consumption and pollution in combination with those of greenhouse gas emissions, land use changes, etc. Since the beginning of these research efforts there has been a persistent debate on the orientation of the Water Footprint. In this editorial we want to shed light on the background of the methodological dispute and highlight points of disagreement and similarities and common challenges. We want to call for joint efforts from the WF and LCA communities to tackle the increasing global water challenges together. The analysis will widen the discussion by highlighting the questions that the two approaches could be trying to answer [5]
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