The Carbon Trust is seeking organisations to act as "pathfinders" for its new product water footprint certification and labelling scheme.
It is designed to help businesses demonstrate leadership in sustainability by certifying the lifecycle water use of their products. They will also be able attach the trust’s water footprint label to the products.
The trust said businesses were key to solving water challenges and footprinting would help businesses to better understand the lifecycle sustainability impacts of their products, uncovering hotspots such as pollution or competing demands in areas of water stress and scarcity.
“Understanding a full lifecycle water footprint can help to focus efforts on reducing the most significant environmental impacts of products. But it also makes good business sense to highlight areas of unforeseen risk and cost-saving opportunity,” said Darran Messem, managing director of certification at the trust.