RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

John Thomas
Joint Director FICCI - Resource Conservation & Management Group
Email: john.thomas@ficci.com
Aug 2006

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

Some Statistics .

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

.The average adult body has 55 to 75% water Two-thirds of our body weight is water. A human embryo is more than 80 percent water .A newborn baby is 74 percent water !The water you drink literally becomes you The functions of water go far beyond just hydration. They include aiding digestion, weight loss, battling water retention, regulating body temperature, aiding the kidney in excretion, lubricating our joints, the list .goes on and on and on

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

How much water goes in to produce .. 1) A cup of coffee ? 2) 1 kg of Wheat ?

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

2006 UNESCO-IHE and University of Twente.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

1. VIRTUAL WATER 2. WATER FOOTPRINT

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

The virtual water concept

VIRTUAL WATER content of a product: is the volume of water used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced (production site specific definition) OR where the product is consumed (consumption site specific definition).
The adjective virtual refers to the fact that most of the water used to produce a product is in the end not contained in the product. The real water content of products is generally negligible if compared to the virtual water content.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

National Virtual Water Balances

(related to the international trade of products)
Period 1997-2001.

Net exporters are shown in GREEN and Net importers in RED.

2006 UNESCO-IHE and University of Twente.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

Regional virtual water balances and net interregional virtual water flows related to the trade in agricultural products.
Period: 1997-2001

2006 UNESCO-IHE and University of Twente.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

Applications of Virtual Water Concept

National Water saving A nation can save its domestic water resources by importing a water-intensive product rather than produce it domestically. Global Water saving International trade can save water globally if a water-intensive commodity is traded from an area where it is produced with high water productivity (resulting in products with low virtual water content) to an area with lower water productivity.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

The water footprint concept was introduced in 2002 by Arjen Hoekstra in analogy to the well known concept of ecological footprint'.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

The WATER FOOTPRINT Concept

The Water Footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of fresh water that is used to produce the foods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation. A water footprint is generally expressed in terms of the volume of water use per year.

Individual Water footprint

The water footprint of an individual is defined as the total water used for the production of the goods and services consumed by the individual. It can be estimated by multiplying all goods and services consumed by their respective virtual water content.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

Nation's Water footprint

The water footprint of a nation is defined as the total amount of water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the nation.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

The national water footprint can be assessed in two ways.

1. Bottom Up Approach

2. Top-down Approach

1. The bottom-up approach is to consider the sum of all goods and services consumed multiplied with their respective virtual water content. It should be noted that the virtual water content of one particular consumption good can vary as a function of the place and conditions of production. 2. In the top-down approach, the water footprint of a nation can be calculated as the total use of domestic water resources plus the net virtual water import.

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

RCMS: Business Advisory Services Sharpening your competitive edge

2006 UNESCO-IHE and University of Twente.