BRAD RIDOUTT:
What water footprinting seeks to do is to give some measure of the impact associated with the water that's used to make products and services, the sort of things that we consume every day. That is important because, in actual fact, most of our burden on the world's water resources doesn't come through the water we use at home for drinking, showering, washing dishes and clothes and so forth, it actually comes through the water used to make all the stuff that we buy and consume every day.
REPORTER:
One group is well out in front on this emerging issue. It's called the Water Footprint Network and it's based in the Netherlands. It's come up with water usage figures for a series of foods and drinks, and claims 1kg of rice takes an astounding 3,400 litres to produce. One kilogram of cheese, around 5,000 litres, the glass of wine one might have with that cheese took 120 litres of water, mostly in the growing of the grapes. A cup of coffee requires 140 litres of water. Tea is a little less thirsty - 30 litres for every cup. But this is perhaps the most contentious statistic, published by the Water Footprint Network - a kilogram of beef allegedly requires a water input of more than 15,000 litres. Australian researcher Brad Ridoutt harbours grave concerns with the methodology used to calculate these numbers.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
You have to question those figures that I have seen in the media, ranging from 15 to even 100,000 litres per kilogram of Australian beef. I think it's potential is very high for that information to be misunderstood and to be confusing because if Australian consumers, or dare say consumers in the UK, or wherever, get the sense that if they avoid eating a kilogram of Australian beef, they're somehow gonna return 100,000 litres of water to a river system that's in need of extra water resources for its health, I think that's very misleading.
DAVID INALL:
Yes, our immediate thought is that we are concerned at those figures coming up as you just indicated.
REPORTER:
The Cattle Council's David Inall maintains most Australian beef is grown out in the range lands, where the cattle feed on vegetation surviving on rainfall alone, not on irrigated pasture.
DAVID INALL:
Those types of figures assume that all of the rain fall that falls onto cattle properties are consumed by the cattle to produce the product. That's clearly not the case. The figures that we have seen indicate 18 litres to 540 litres of water are used to produce a kilo of beef.
REPORTER:
The CSIRO agrees with the beef industry, that where the water comes from does make a difference. Brad Ridoutt is helping to put together a revised water footprinting methodology that looks at impact of water use rather than volume. Not all water is created equal. He says there are three types of water - green water is the rainwater that hydrates food crops. Blue water comes from surface or underground resources - it's the rivers and reservoirs on which the irrigated regions rely. And there is the more esoteric grey water, which could be called dilution water, it's the amount needed to dilute waste water from industry and crops.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
One of the questions we ask is 'In the absence of production, to what extent would that water be available for the environment?' Or, 'To what extent would that water be available for other users?'
REPORTER:
It's very complicated, isn't it?
DR CONZELMANN:
Well, it is, yeah, but that's part of the fun as well because if it would be easy, you know, you... had a less interesting job.
REPORTER:
With a PhD in molecular biology, what Dr Conzelmann might describe as 'interesting', others find hard to digest. Nestle is taking the subject very seriously, though. The company makes many of the brands we all know. Globally it has hundreds of factories, including several in Australia. Those factories rely on 600,000 farmers worldwide and many of those farmers are advised by Nestle's thousands of agricultural consultants, who are increasingly teaching water-saving methods to their growers.
DR CONZELMANN:
We have realised, over the last 10 years or so, that for farming, it takes an average - again globally - of about 3,000 litres of water to produce every single kilogram of raw material we depend on. And that is why we have now trained, over the last few years, the agricultural advisors that are working on our behalf with the farming communities in many countries.
REPORTER:
Nestle doesn't have a mortgage on water-saving ideas, though. One of their main competitors, the Mars Food Company, is also coming to terms with sourcing product from less water-stressed regions.
ROGER BEKTASH:
I'd like to make it very simple, Prue, and that is it's not the total volume of water that may be involved in production, but it's the impact of that water locally that's really important.
REPORTER:
This is Wodonga in Victoria. The biggest single private employer in town is the Mars company. It's here they manufacture most of their pet foods - well-known names such as Whiskers and Schmackos and Pedigree. In fact, this is the biggest cannery in the Southern Hemisphere. It's fitting that this company, now grappling with the implications of water use, sits beside the River Murray. The huge, but only 17% full, Hume Dam is a short drive up the road - a symbol of how stretched for water this region really is. Rethinking the use of this precious resource has fallen to Dr Roger Bektash.
ROGER BEKTASH:
We started with our factory, and by understanding our water use, and doing this sort of detailed mapping, we've been able to reduce our water use on this site by 38% over the last two years and then that led us to thinking about water use across the whole life cycle of our products.
REPORTER:
He says the water used in the factory is a drop in the ocean compared to the water needed to grow the raw products before they arrive at the factory door.
ROGER BEKTASH:
And I think that's one of the big revelations, the big ahas out of this study. We thought we knew our supply chain very well and our products, but when we really look at the data and look at where the products are grown, how they are grown, then we start to realise the big impact in water use outside our factory, not passing the blame, in any way, but just recognising that our farmers and suppliers are more vulnerable than ourselves to water shortages.
REPORTER:
To improve the current water footprinting methods, Brad Ridoutt has taken a long, hard look at two very different Mars products - peanut M&Ms and Dolmio pasta sauce. M&Ms contain peanuts and cocoa and sugar.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
When we calculated all the water that's used across the whole supply chain to produce a large 250g bag of peanut M&Ms, it was over 1,000 litres, a huge volume, but most of that water was involved in the growing of the cocoa in West Africa. Now, those cocoa trees are growing under natural rainfall, and, to our knowledge, there's no water scarcity issues in those locations. So when we recalculated the water footprint using the water stress indexes and so forth, rather than talking about a water footprint of 1,153 litres, it became a water footprint of 31 litres.
REPORTER:
The pasta sauce contains mostly tomatoes and onions and herbs. All of these ingredients are grown under irrigation, often in hot, dry regions, which are experiencing pressure on water resources.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
The volume of water used to produce a jar of Dolmio pasta sauce was something like a sixth of the water used to produce the peanut M&Ms, but in actual fact, the impact of that water use was higher in the case of Dolmio pasta sauce than it was for the peanut M&Ms. Yes, that was very revealing.
ROGER BEKTASH:
Here, we see the local water impact were much greater for something like tomatoes versus cocoa. That's helping us understand this issue.
REPORTER:
Far from scaring off the man from Mars, the CSIRO's calculations have prompted the company to assess some of its other products. Mars is the world's biggest manufacturer of pet food. Information just released is an audit of the embedded water in two signature brands - Pedigree dry dog food and Whiskers cat food.
ROGER BEKTASH:
This is very complex. In fact, the CSIRO folks were horrified when they looked at the recipe complexity of our products, because we use components coming from so many different sources, so grains, meats and whether it's red meat or white meat or whatever, but they are almost all by-products of the main industries for human food.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
The numbers are quite large, but in actual fact, more than 85% of the water that's used is so-called green water - natural rainfall that fell over these agricultural lands, the use of which is not limiting the availability of water for the environment or for other users.
REPORTER:
So when you look at, say, 20kg of Pedigree dog food, it looks astronomical. 17,000 litres or more than 17,000 litres of water. But what you're saying is more like 13 litres, when you take into account the green and blue water.
BRAD RIDOUTT:
It's something like that, hence the reason why it's so important with water footprinting to be talking about the impacts, and not just the volumes - talking about the volumes can be very misleading.
REPORTER:
Now, if you're thinking that this is going way too far, that it's too academic and that consumers don't care anyway, then the opinion of the Trade Commissioner based in London might change your mind. Last year, I was in the UK to report on carbon footprinting, the science of measuring the embedded carbon in food production, depending on how it was produced and how far it's travelled to get to the end user. Austrade now says water footprinting is the next big trend and Australian producers should be aware of it.
KYLIE HARGREAVES:
More and more people are getting worried about water because you get headlines like, 'The next wars are going to be about water' and, you know, that water is the new carbon, and all this sort of stuff, so they are conscious of it.
REPORTER:
In British supermarkets, little footprints are already appearing on labels, denoting the carbon footprint. There are plans for similar labels denoting water usage. Ms Hargreaves says while Austrade is preparing for the threats and the opportunities this represents, there is a risk that consumers will become completely bamboozled.
KYLIE HARGREAVES:
Yeah, the bamboozling factor is alive and well and, interestingly, what we are seeing is this trend called choice editing, so the consumers are, sort of, throwing their hands up in the air, saying, 'I can look at a Fair Trade label, I can look at the recycling label, I can look at the carbon footprint, I can look at the water fingerprint,' organic, everything. It's too complicated. I want to trust you, Mr Marks and Spencers, to meet your standards that you have said you will, in terms of ethics, in terms of sustainability and green, and I will know when I walk into your store, because your brand is real, that everything on that shelf meets your ethical green standards.'
REPORTER:
Which all means, if Australian producers don't have a green story, then they'll be locked out of the supply chains.