Reducing your water footprint
is crucial for the planet
Glaciers are critical to life – their meltwater is essential for drinking water, agriculture, industry, clean energy production and healthy ecosystems. However, glaciers are melting faster than ever and, as the planet gets hotter due to climate change, our frozen world is shrinking, making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme.
Following Unesco’s most recent report on the importance of mountain waters, including alpine glaciers, to ensure food and energy security to billions of people living nearby and further downstream, the UN is exhorting everyone – from individuals and families to companies and governments – to do what they can to reduce global warming and adapt to the worsening global water crisis.
The reality of the global water crisis
According to a 2024 report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, demand for fresh water will outstrip supply by 40% by the end of the decade, because the world’s water systems are being put under “unprecedented stress”. More than half the world’s food production will be at risk of failure within the next 25 years as a rapidly accelerating water crisis grips the planet, unless urgent action is taken to conserve water resources.
Water is essential to human civilisation and agricultural production with excessive or insufficient amounts being problematic. From an agricultural perspective, this presents significant challenges and opportunities depending on the type and location of food production.
Mike Meek, allmanhall’s procurement & sustainability director, explains that “In some geographical regions, like the Mediterranean, the Middle East, South Africa, some parts of Australia and Southwest USA, fresh water supply could run dry within decades. Some of these areas currently provide significant amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables to the United Kingdom during the winter season.
In Southeast Asia, increased flooding and rising sea levels are projected to threaten the population. Longer growing seasons in the Northern latitudes could benefit food production, albeit with an increased risk of extreme weather events that damage crops and disrupt supply.
Mike continues that, “In the United Kingdom, water scarcity is increasingly challenging in the Southeast and East of England, where annual rainfall is well below the UK average and agricultural hubs require significant water extraction for crop production alongside increased water consumption from densely populated urban areas. The impacts of climate change pose a significant future risk to fruit production in the Southeast of England, whilst offering some benefits to wine producers.”
A key component to understanding the water in agriculture is the water footprint of food, which consists of three components: green, blue and grey water footprints. Green water refers to the rainwater consumed. Bluewater is the volume of surface and groundwater used; this is mainly water used for irrigation. Grey water is the volume of freshwater needed to assimilate the pollutants generated in producing animals or crops.
Green water use is the least important of the three water footprints in farming regions with substantial regular rainfall. If rain falls on grassland, grass will grow irrespective of whether or not the land is used to rear cattle and sheep. Therefore, no green water is saved by not using the grass for grazing animals. Blue and grey water, however, are crucial as the former is extracted from rivers, lakes and underground water while the latter represents the pollution from farming animals and the crops needed to feed them.
What is the UK’s water footprint?
The UK’s total water footprint (WF) is 102 Gm3 per year, equal to 49 times the annual flow of the River Thames. This is made up of agricultural products (74.8 Gm3/yr or 36 times the annual flow); industrial products (24.0 Gm3/yr or 11.5 times the annual flow); and household water use (3.3 Gm3/yr or 1.5 times the annual flow). Based on the UK’s population of around 60.4 million, this equates to an average of 4,645 litres per person per day, equivalent to 50 normal bathtubs. Of this, agricultural products account for 3,400 litres per person per day, or 36 bathtubs.
Why does agriculture have such a high water footprint, accounting for 73% of our total WF? This is by no means unusual but reflects the global picture – farming uses 70% of all worldwide fresh water sources, and a third of the water in global agriculture is linked to meat and dairy production.
The largest part of livestock’s water footprint (which equates to 40% of the UK’s total agricultural WF) stems not from providing water for animals to drink, but from the water used to grow the grain – e.g. wheat, maize/corn and oats – fed to intensively farmed animals. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, “Often, over 90 percent of the water consumption in livestock and poultry production is associated with feed production”.
Any animal product’s water footprint is larger than crop products with equivalent nutritional value. Research shows that diets with only moderate levels of meat and dairy have much lower water footprints than the meat-heavy Western diet.
These statistics highlight that one of the simplest ways to reduce our water consumption is to move away from a diet high in meat and dairy, and move to more sustainable ingredients that don’t cost the earth.
Practical strategies to minimise your water footprint
Hayden Hibbert, allmanhall’s client relations director explains that “Deploying effective water reduction strategies is now imperative. With our sustainable and responsible approach to food procurement, we can help you significantly reduce your catering operations’ water footprint through practical and cost-effective methods:
- Use impact assessment technology such as Foodsteps for recipes and menus, which removes some of the complexity of measuring supply chain emissions. The app gives an impact summary of not just water usage but also land use and greenhouse gas emissions.
- Change the dietary trend from more meat and dairy to less, which can also deliver significant cost reduction. By removing 50% of the beef in a cottage pie, for example, and replacing it with lentils, catering teams can reduce the water footprint and achieve a massive 70% cost saving!
- Make vegetarian and vegan dishes delicious, inspiring, and tempting. allmanhall’s registered dietitian has created sustainable and nutritious Hero Recipes for our clients which taste fantastic and don’t cost the Earth.
- Understand your supply chains (not just the last mile supplier) through sustainability dashboards which deliver full traceability and transparency of your food.
- Reduce your food waste! The amount of water used to produce food makes it even more important to reduce waste, and to buy and use your food in a way that is sustainable and responsible. For more information, read our blog on reducing food waste, here.
Mike worked closely with Epsom College to reduce their water emissions. The Director of Catering and her team wanted to benefit from truly informed choices and greater food supply chain transparency to reduce the water impact of the food and catering at Epsom College and involve everyone in these improvements.
Recipes were re-engineered to reduce their planetary impact whilst maintaining the taste, appeal and nutritional benefit of these dishes. Hayden says “One of the most effective methods of significantly reducing the water impact of a recipe is to reduce or replace the high-intensity meat content, especially beef and lamb. The Epsom College chefs managed to do just this, for example, by reducing the lamb content of a curry dish from 120kg to 80kg through the addition of sweet potatoes and peppers.”
“We managed to achieve the reduction in meat content without the majority of pupils noticing. Wherever there is a ‘wet dish’ you can replace the meat with a selection of creatively prepared vegetables or pulses”, said Andy Trowell, Executive Head Chef at Epsom College.
“At Epsom College, we are continually looking at the ways in which we can become more sustainable and teach our pupils about the food that they eat, where it comes from and the environmental impact of food choices. When people think about sustainability, often packaging and supply chains spring to mind, which of course is important, but we need to look at the food itself and this was a key reason why we chose to enter into this partnership with allmanhall and Foodsteps.
It has been incredibly insightful and informative so far, for both my team as well as our pupils, and I look forward to starting the second phase.”
– Mrs Bev Spencer, Director of Catering at Epsom College
Great food service doesn’t have to cost the Earth. A forward-thinking catering team, supported by a dedicated and expert food procurement partner like allmanhall, will significantly reduce your operation’s water footprint and boost sustainability through the adoption of technological tools and the implementation of menu change, alongside greater transparency of the supply chain.