Water Footprint

Water footprint

Darwin's Water Focus is a funnel-based view that gives a structured picture of a company's water footprint and its exposure to basin-level overexploitation, aligned with the SBTN Freshwater framework. Water volumes come from the platform's water pressure pipeline (ecoinvent, Agribalyse).

Level 1 — Total water overview

The entry point of the funnel: total water consumption (m³), split two ways.

• By water type — blue water (surface + groundwater withdrawals). Green water (rainwater) and grey water (dilution of pollutants) are planned for a later version.
• By scope — Scope 1 (direct operations), Scope 3 upstream, Scope 3 downstream.

Level 2 — Blue water by traceability

Blue water is the priority type under SBTN's freshwater targets framework. Total blue-water consumption is split by how precisely it can be located — which determines whether basin-level exposure can be computed:

• Site-level — Scope 1 consumption on an entity with precise coordinates; assignable to a specific basin (HydroBASINS level 05).
• Region / country — consumption located only at zone, region or country level; basin assignment is probabilistic.
• Untracked — consumption with no geographic anchor, or any Scope 3 consumption.

Traceability follows the platform's general localisation rules; basins use HydroBASINS level 05, consistent with the SBTN dataset.

Level 3A — Site & sub-catchment exposure

For consumption that can be assigned to a basin, Darwin uses the SBTN Freshwater Quantity Target dataset (per-basin sustainable cap and overshoot) to report:

• the share of consumption in overshot basins (basins where the annual overshoot is greater than zero) versus non-overshot basins;
• the reduction target for overshot basins — the SBTN basin reduction target, expressed both as a percentage and in absolute m³.

Level 3B — Region / country exposure

For consumption located only at region or country level (no direct basin assignment), the view reports:

• a water-stress risk ratio (WRI Aqueduct baseline water stress) for the region;
• a weighted-average reduction target and a maximum reduction target across the basins of that region.

Level 3C — Untracked water

For consumption with no geographic anchor, this section highlights where improving traceability would yield the most basin-level insight:

• split by scope and by entity;
• top input points ranked by untracked blue-water volume — the highest-priority candidates for traceability improvement;
• top commodities by volume (SBTN water-flagging of commodities is planned for a later version).

Sources

• SBTN Freshwater Quantity Target dataset (Hogeboom et al., 2025, v2) — HydroBASINS level 05 sustainable caps and overshoots; basis for reduction targets.
• SBTN Freshwater Targets methodology (2023) — blue-water priority and science-based target-setting.
• WRI Aqueduct — baseline water stress for region/country-level risk.
• ecoinvent, Agribalyse — water consumption factors by activity.

Framework alignment

Water Focus V1 supports the Sustainable Water Balance outcome of the AWS (Alliance for Water Stewardship) International Water Stewardship Standard v3.0 — as a "gather & understand" and "commit & plan" enabler — and aligns with SBTN freshwater target-setting and TNFD freshwater metrics. HydroBASINS level 05 is consistent with the AWS catchment-delineation requirement for a corporate multi-site view.