Lessons learned from the application of different water footprint approaches to compare different food packaging alternatives

Freshwater scarcity is recognized as a major environmental concern at the center of international debates. To tackle this issue, the concept of water footprint as a measure to address the potential impacts of water use emerged, attracting the interest of businesses worldwide. Currently, two references exist to assess the water footprint of a product, process, or organization: the water footprint network and ISO 14046. The objective of this paper is to verify whether the application of these two methodologies to the same case study gives consistent results: 1) in the evaluation of different alternatives in terms of identification of water-related hotspots (consumptive and degradative use) and 2) in the identification of the alternative that presents better performance related to water. The two methodologies were applied to a tomato sauce produced in the US that was undergoing a redesign process that involved different packaging alternatives. The results of the study confirmed that the two methodologies provide consistent results in terms of hotspot analysis and decisions among alternatives with reference to consumptive water use; however, the results related to degradative use are not always consistent. Considering this finding, it is important for companies to undertake a comprehensive assessment before making decisions and to understand the reasoning behind the methods and the objective of the indicators used in the assessments.