ISO 14046 is an international standard on environmental management that discusses principles, requirements, and guidelines for water footprint for its proper assessment
ISO 14046 specifies principles, requirements, and guidelines related to water footprint assessment of products, processes, and organizations based on life cycle assessment (LCA).
ISO 14046 provides principles, requirements, and guidelines for conducting and reporting a water footprint assessment as a stand-alone assessment, or as part of a more comprehensive environmental assessment.
The result of a water footprint assessment under ISO 14046 is a single value or a profile of impact indicator results.
Note 1: Under ISO 14046 only air and soil emissions that impact water quality is included in the assessment, and not all air and soil emissions are included.
Note 2: Under ISO 14046 reporting and communication of water footprint results, for example in the form of labels or declarations, is outside the scope.
ISO 14046 on principles, requirements and guidelines for water footprint is relevant to:
Water is an essential natural resource. The issue of water and its management has become increasingly central to the global debate on sustainable development. This interest has been driven by growing water demand, increasing water scarcity in many areas, and/or degradation of water quality. A water footprint assessment addresses the potential environmental impacts related to water associated with a product, process, or organization.
ISO 14046 discusses water footprint assessment that can be conducted and reported as a stand-alone assessment, where only impacts related to water are assessed, or as part of a life cycle assessment, where consideration is given to a comprehensive set of environmental impacts and not only impacts related to water.
ISO 14046 provides you with requirements, principles and guidelines for accurate water footprint assessment for facilitating water efficiency and optimization of water management at the product, process and organizational levels.
The requirements, principles and guidelines under ISO 14046 also assist in assessing the magnitude of potential environmental impacts related to water and identifying opportunities to reduce it.
With compliance and obedience to ISO 14046, you can enhance the efficacy of water assessment for strategic planning, priority setting, product or process design or redesign, decisions about the investment of resources by the decision-makers in industry, government or non-governmental organizations.
EN ISO 14046:2016
ISO 14046:2014