What is a water footprint under ISO 14046?
An ISO 14046 water footprint is an assessment of the potential water-related impacts of a product, a process or an organisation, carried out with the logic of life cycle assessment (LCA). It goes beyond counting cubic metres: it asks what the use of water does to the environment where the water is taken and returned.
The current standard is ISO 14046:2014 — Environmental management — Water footprint — Principles, requirements and guidelines, published in August 2014 by committee ISO/TC 207/SC 5. According to its abstract on iso.org, read on 11 November 2026:
- it specifies principles, requirements and guidelines for water footprint assessment of products, processes and organisations, based on life cycle assessment;
- the assessment can be carried out on its own or as part of a more comprehensive environmental assessment;
- only air and soil emissions that affect water quality are included, and not all of them;
- the result is a single value or a profile of impact indicator results;
- reporting is within scope, but communicating the results, for example as labels or declarations, is not.
Status on 11 November 2026. iso.org states that the standard was last reviewed and confirmed in 2020 and is now under systematic review again, at stage 90.60 (close of review). No new edition has been announced: ISO 14046:2014 is the edition to apply.
Three short definitions used below:
- Water withdrawal: the volume of water brought onto the site from any source (mains, borehole, well, surface water).
- Water consumption: the part of the withdrawal that does not return to the environment (evaporated, built into the product, sent elsewhere).
- Water stress: the ability, or inability, to meet human and ecological demand for water; the VSME definition covers availability, quality and accessibility of water.
These three ideas explain why a litre of water does not weigh the same in the Souss valley of southern Morocco as it does in a water-rich region.
Water footprint, water withdrawal, carbon footprint: what is the difference?
Withdrawal is a volume measured on your site; an ISO 14046 water footprint is an impact assessment over the life cycle; an ISO 14067 carbon footprint covers a single impact category, climate change. All three often draw on the same plant data, but they answer different questions.
Concept | What it measures | Reference | Result | Who asks for it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Site water withdrawal and consumption | Volumes in, out and consumed over a period | Disclosure B6 of the VSME standard (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560); the river basin agency authorisation | m³ per year, per site | EU customers (ESG questionnaires), lenders, authorities |
Water footprint | Potential water-related impacts over all or part of the life cycle | ISO 14046:2014 | Single value or indicator profile, per unit of product or for the organisation | Buyers comparing products or origins, LCA studies |
Product carbon footprint | Greenhouse gas emissions and removals | ISO 14067:2018 | kg CO2e per unit of product | Industrial buyers, retailers |
Multi-criteria LCA | Several impact categories, including water and climate | ISO 14040:2006 (formerly ISO 14040:1997) and ISO 14044:2006; PEF method | Indicator profile | EPDs, PEF studies, ecodesign |
Water management system | How the site reduces, replaces and reuses water | ISO 46001:2019 | Site performance indicators | Management, group, voluntary certification |
Two points to keep in mind:
- A water footprint is not a volume. Dividing the water bill by tonnes produced gives a useful management ratio, not a footprint in the ISO 14046 sense: it misses the life cycle (your growers’ irrigation water, for instance) and the translation into impacts.
- Water is already part of multi-criteria LCA. ISO 14040:2006, with Amendment 1:2020, and ISO 14044:2006 frame the life cycle assessment whose approach ISO 14046 follows (see our guide to life cycle assessment under ISO 14040 and 14044). The EU Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method in Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 is multi-criteria; its recital 6 lists water consumption among the impact assessment methods improved during the pilot phase.
For the difference between a corporate carbon inventory, LCA and a product footprint, see our carbon footprint vs LCA comparison; for the climate method itself, our product carbon footprint ISO 14067 guide.
Why does the water footprint matter for Moroccan exporters and their buyers?
Because Morocco faces structural water stress, and the farm and food products it exports carry the water of their home basin with them. A European buyer comparing origins looks more and more at where and how water was used, not only at how much.
What Morocco’s NDC 3.0 says. Morocco’s Nationally Determined Contribution for 2026-2035, filed with the UNFCCC and read on 11 November 2026, states that:
- renewable water resources fell from 2,560 to about 620 m³ per person between 1960 and 2025, close to the absolute scarcity threshold of 500 m³;
- 2023 was the driest year in at least eight decades, with a rainfall deficit estimated at 48%;
- the national irrigation water-saving programme targets 1,000,000 hectares equipped with efficient irrigation by 2030, with water savings of up to 2 to 3 billion m³ a year on the large irrigated areas;
- the National Water Strategy includes seawater desalination, artificial aquifer recharge and the reuse of treated wastewater.
For a citrus exporter in the Souss or a berry packer in the Loukkos area of northern Morocco, this turns into three questions buyers already ask: where does the irrigation water come from (groundwater, dam, desalinated water), how efficiently is it used (drip, scheduling), and what happens to washing and packing water.
What Moroccan law says. Law No. 36-15 on water, enacted by Dahir No. 1-16-113 of 10 August 2016 (Official Bulletin No. 6506 of 6 October 2016) and amended notably by Law No. 05-23 (Official Bulletin No. 7318 of 18 July 2024), is read here in the consolidated version published by Morocco’s Secretariat General of the Government (SGG) on 30 July 2025, which notes that only the versions published in the Official Bulletin are authentic:
Article | What it provides | What it means for your data |
|---|---|---|
Article 27 | Any use or exploitation of the public water domain is subject to a fee | Fee notices give declared or metered volumes |
Article 28 | Authorisation is required, among other things, for digging wells and drilling boreholes to abstract groundwater, and for discharging or reusing wastewater | Every borehole and discharge point on site has (or should have) a file |
Article 31 | The authorisation, issued by the river basin agency for up to ten years, sets among other things the flow or volume, monitoring arrangements, and how the abstraction installation is fitted with a meter | The required meter and readings are your first primary data |
Article 98 | Any discharge that may harm the public water domain requires authorisation from the river basin agency and a fee | Discharge volumes and test results feed the water-quality side of the footprint |
A credible water footprint therefore starts with a review of the site’s authorisations. A borehole without authorisation, or a missing meter that the authorisation requires, is a compliance gap before it is a data gap. The adaptation side (drought, abstraction limits) is covered in our ISO 14090 and 14091 climate adaptation guide, and climate-risk disclosure on our climate risk and IFRS S2 page.
How is a water footprint assessed under ISO 14046?
Like a life cycle assessment applied to water: set the goal and scope, inventory the water flows, assess the impacts, interpret, and report. Quality depends mostly on locating each flow and on the share of primary data.
- Goal and scope. What the study is for (answering a buyer, comparing two sites, choosing a supplier, steering a reduction); product or organisation; functional unit (one kilogram of packed citrus, one tonne of canned product); system boundary (from orchard to packhouse gate, for example); data year.
- Water flow inventory. For each stage: volumes withdrawn by source, volumes discharged and where to, volumes consumed; the location of each flow (basin, aquifer); discharge quality data.
- Impact assessment. Flows are translated into impact indicators, using characterisation methods that are chosen, cited and justified in the report. The result is a single value or an indicator profile.
- Interpretation. The stages and items that weigh most, sensitivity analysis (location, dry and wet years, allocation between co-products), limitations.
- Report. Method, data, assumptions, results and limitations, so that an independent third party can carry out a critical review if one is requested.
Data to gather for a farm and its packhouse:
Data | Usual source in Morocco | Type |
|---|---|---|
Volumes pumped per borehole or well | Meters required by the authorisation, readings, pumping log | Primary |
Dam or irrigation network water | Bills or readings from the irrigation scheme operator | Primary |
Mains water for the packhouse or plant | Utility bills, sub-meters per workshop | Primary |
Irrigation per crop and per plot | Irrigation schedule, drip system, soil sensors | Primary if monitored, otherwise estimated |
Discharged volumes and test results | Discharge authorisation, tests by an approved laboratory | Primary |
Reused or recycled water | Treatment plant meters, recycling balance | Primary |
Water embedded in purchased inputs (packaging, fertilisers, energy) | Documented LCA databases (database, version, year) | Secondary |
Location and water-stress level of each source | River basin agency, cited public data | Secondary, sourced |
As with carbon footprints, this article deliberately gives no numerical factor or indicator value: every value used in a study is cited with its source and year.
What is ISO 46001, and how does it fit with ISO 14046?
ISO 46001 is a management system standard: it organises how a site uses less water, and keeps doing so. ISO 14046 measures; ISO 46001 manages. The water footprint shows where the impacts are; the management system brings consumption down and proves it over time.
The current standard is ISO 46001:2019 — Water efficiency management systems — Requirements with guidance for use, published in July 2019 by committee ISO/TC 224. According to its abstract on iso.org, read on 11 November 2026, it:
- specifies requirements, with guidance for use, to establish, implement and maintain a water efficiency management system;
- applies to organisations of all types and sizes that use water, with a focus on end users;
- is built on a “reduce, replace, reuse” approach: water-efficient fittings and leak detection; replacing drinking water with reclaimed water, seawater or rainwater where feasible; recycling process water or grey water;
- covers monitoring, measurement, documentation, reporting, design and procurement of equipment, systems and processes, and staff training.
Status on 11 November 2026. ISO 46001:2019 has one amendment, ISO 46001:2019/Amd 1:2024 “Climate action changes”, published in February 2024. The standard is at stage 90.92 (to be revised) and will be replaced by a second edition, ISO/CD 46001, at stage 30.20 (committee draft consultation) on iso.org. No content or publication date for the new edition has been announced: apply the 2019 edition and its amendment.
Question | ISO 14046:2014 | ISO 46001:2019 |
|---|---|---|
Type | Assessment standard (principles, requirements, guidelines) | Requirements standard for a management system |
Subject | Potential water-related impacts over the life cycle | Efficient use of water by the organisation |
Scope | Product, process or organisation, including upstream | The site and its water uses |
Output | Study report, single value or indicator profile | Policy, objectives, action plan, indicators, audits, review |
Assurance | Optional third-party critical review | Internal audit; voluntary certification by a certification body |
Status on 11 November 2026 | Under systematic review (90.60), current | Being revised (90.92); ISO/CD 46001 at stage 30.20 |
With ISO 14001 and ISO 50001. If your site is certified to ISO 14001, water is usually among the environmental aspects you have identified: ISO 46001 takes its management further. The logic is close to that of ISO 50001:2018 (formerly ISO 50001:2011) for energy, presented on our ISO 50001 and energy audit page. In a food plant, hot water, steam and refrigeration link the two: saving cleaning water also saves the energy that heats it, which counts in your decarbonisation strategy.
What water data do EU customers already ask for?
Usually volumes before impacts: total withdrawal, consumption by water-intensive processes, and the share consumed in water-stressed areas. This is disclosure B6 of the VSME standard, which many EU customers copy into their supplier questionnaires.
Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1560, which sets the voluntary VSME standard (Annex I), read on EUR-Lex on 11 November 2026, asks under B6 Water for:
- paragraph 36: total water withdrawal, meaning the amount of water drawn into the boundaries of the organisation or facility;
- paragraph 37: where the company has water-intensive production processes (the text cites drying, production of goods and agricultural irrigation), its water consumption, calculated as withdrawal minus discharge from those processes, and separately the water consumed at sites located in water-stressed areas.
These points are voluntary for companies with 10 employees or fewer. Annex II, which sets the most a customer subject to the CSRD may ask of a value-chain partner, includes total water withdrawal (paragraph 36) for companies with more than 10 employees. Details are in our VSME standard guide for Moroccan suppliers.
In practice, we see three levels of request:
- Site volumes (B6): meters, bills, borehole readings. This is the foundation, to be kept month by month.
- Management ratios: m³ per tonne produced, per hectare, per cleaning cycle. Useful to show improvement, provided the method is written down.
- An ISO 14046 product water footprint: when a buyer or retailer compares origins, or when a multi-criteria LCA is requested. This is a study project, not a questionnaire field.
Getting level 1 right first avoids building an ISO 14046 study on unmeasured volumes.
What water claims can you make?
Precise claims, limited to what is measured and can be demonstrated: “packhouse water consumption reduced by x% between two years, same scope, metered”, rather than “water-saving product” or “water neutral”. ISO 14046:2014 itself leaves communication out of scope.
Directive (EU) 2024/825, on empowering consumers for the green transition, has applied since 27 September 2026 (Article 4, read on EUR-Lex on 11 November 2026). It adds to the commercial practices banned in all circumstances:
- point 4a: making a generic environmental claim where the trader cannot demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim;
- point 4b: making a claim about the entire product when it concerns only one aspect.
Both bans apply to any water claim aimed at EU consumers; a third point, specific to climate, targets neutrality claims based on offsetting. On the standards side, ISO 14021:2026 — Self-declared environmental claims (formerly ISO 14021:2016) governs self-declared claims, as our ISO 14021 environmental claims guide explains. For the regulation, see our article on Directive 2024/825 and environmental claims.
Our position: reduce first, measure next, claim only what is proven, and have any claim for the EU market reviewed before it is printed or published.
Where should you start? A first water footprint checklist
With your authorisations and your meters, then with the buyer’s question. This list follows the order we use in the field, in export agriculture as in food processing.