The land and water
footprints of everyday products

Mind your step2

Resource use in the supply chain

Table of Contents

Executive Summary

4

Introduction

6

The Products

13

A Pair of Boots

14

A Cotton T-Shirt

16

High Demand for Smartphones

18

Tea or Coffee?

22

A Chocolate Bar

24

A Ready Meal

26

Scaling Up

28

The retail clothing sector

30

The smartphone sector

32

The chocolate and confectionary sector

34

The toy and games sector

36

Recommendations

38

Appendix 1

40

Appendix 2

41

References and Notes

42

Author: Helen BurleyFootprints modelling:
TrucostDesign: Claire Bracegirdle,
Glynn Perkins and Henry
Chown
Editing and proofing: Julian
Kirby, Henry Chown, Gwen
Buck and Chris GordonSmith
Friends of the Earth Trust
registered charity number
281681, company number
1533942. Friends of the
Earth Limited company
number 1012357.
May 2015
The land and water footprints of everyday products 3

Executive summary

Growing global demand for consumer goods is
putting key resources – and our economy – underincreasing pressure, yet all too often companies
are not fully aware of the true extent of theirnatural resource demands. This report explores
the environmental footprints of everyday
products, using a footprinting approach tomeasure the amount of land and water needed
across the product’s supply chain. It argues that
this information is crucial both to business andto policy makers in understanding and managing
the full extent of our resource use in the face ofgrowing future constraints.
Friends of the Earth commissioned environmental
data analysts Trucost to estimate the total land
and water footprint of seven generic everyday
products: a cotton t-shirt, a smartphone, a cupof tea, a cup of coffee, a chicken curry readymeal, a pair of leather boots, and a chocolate bar.
We also asked Trucost to estimate the company
and sector footprints for three of the products(t-shirts, chocolate bars and smartphones) and the
toy and game sector to gain an insight into thescale of resource demand generated bythese products.
The results reveal the intensive resource
demands of some products – a single smart
phone for example requires 18m2 of land andnearly 13,000 litres (13 tonnes) of water. With abillion smartphones sold worldwide in 2013, thesmartphone industry uses a significant amount ofwater. But the findings also reveal the importanceof looking at the different stages of the supply
chain. A pair of leather boots requires 50m2 of landand 25,000 litres of water, yet if the waste fromthe leather tanning process is treated in a waste
treatment plant, water demand is reduced to
14,500 litres. How goods are made, how resources
are treated, and how they are packaged all make adifference to the overall footprint.
Products that are made from crops, or fromanimals that are fed on crops (e.g. cotton clothing,leather goods, confectionary etc) tend to dependon access to large quantities of blue and green
water (freshwater and rainwater), yet supplies ofblue and green water face growing constraints
in some parts of the world as a result of climatechange. Products that use even tiny quantitiesof heavy metals and minerals (e.g. smartphones,
4

Resource use in the supply chain

electronic devices, LED lights) generate large
quantities of pollution, which if not treatedefficiently, pollutes water courses. The ‘grey water’required to safely dilute pollution presents anothersignificant demand on water supplies which may
already be stressed. If sufficient grey water is
not available, or the pollution load is too high,communities may lose access to clean water, withthe pollution posing a risk to agriculture, humanhealth and biodiversity.
Analysis of company and sector level resource use
revealed the scale of land and water use needed todrive the global economy.
These estimates are based on publicly available
financial data for the individual companies andthe sectors they operate in. The actual land
and water footprints per unit turnover of thesecompanies will vary according to the different
mix of products that they make (e.g. Samsung
Electronic makes fridges but Apple doesn’t) andthe different resource efficiency policies they
employ. Nevertheless these estimates give an
indication to company shareholders and directors
as to the companies demand for resources,
which of course also means its exposure orvulnerability to shortages in and competition for
those resources. The estimates are also a valuable
signpost to policy-makers as to the implications of
the growth in the various sectors of the economy,
the vulnerability of society as a whole throughits dependence on these sectors, and the sortsof policies (such as more and better reuse andrecycling) that should be supported to addressthese concerns.
An estimate for the land-use for ten of the top
clothing retail companies showed that their
combined land requirements covered an area
almost four times the size of Greater London. In
the confectionary sector, market leader Kraft’s
estimated land-use extended to an area thesize of Belgium, with water-use equivalent to 7
million Olympic-sized swimming pools. Acrossthe confectionary sector as a whole, 95% of thewater demand was for green water. In a world
undergoing climate change the reliability ofpreviously predictable rainfall may no longer betaken for granted.
Sector-level analysis also revealed the significanceof resource demand for packaging. In theclothing retail sector, 20% of the land and water
footprints were attributed to packaging materials,
while in the toy sector, packaging accounted for
84% of land-use. Replacing plastic packaging
with plant-based materials, such as cardboard
and bioplastics, increases the land and water
footprints for these products.
This report focuses on the land and water
footprints of the products analysed, not thefull resource impacts. To obtain a fuller picture,
it would be necessary both to use companyspecific rather than generic data and to also
consider the material resource use and thegreenhouse gas footprint. More and morecompanies are now measuring their greenhousegas emissions, and some are also measuring
water use. But far greater progress is needed inaccounting for all four footprints, as well as far
greater transparency in revealing the levels of
resources companies use.

high risk materials by giving a headline accountof consumption, including how much land, water,materials and carbon are used. Doing so would
enable policy-makers to develop an effective
and evidence-based national resource strategy
for resource sufficiency and the protection of the
global environment.
The data and analysis on product and company
footprints are provided by Trucost. The views
expressed in interpreting this data belong toFriends of the Earth. Whilst every care has beentaken by Trucost in calculating data, Trucost
accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss
(including without limitation direct or indirectloss and any loss of profit, data, or economic loss)
occasioned to any person nor for any damage, cost,claim or expense arising from any reliance on thisreport or any of its content.

Friends of the Earth believes there is a limit towhat can be achieved through voluntary action
and we have been calling for stronger legislation
to require large companies to report on the socialand environmental impacts of the products
they sell, including through the supply chain.
Footprints are a valuable tool in delivering thisand could provide companies, policy makers andgovernments with a much better understanding of
their resource dependency.
Friends of the Earth and its allies are also calling
for the UK Treasury to conduct an assessment of
national resource consumption and dependency:a ‘Stern for Resources’. The 2006 Stern reporton the economic impacts of climate change
concluded that the UK’s long-term economic
health was far better served by weighting effort
towards avoiding, rather than adapting to, climatechange. Investors, manufacturers and otherbusiness leaders consistently sound the alarmthat rising resource costs and insecurity of supply
are real risks to their companies and the UK andglobal economy. Meanwhile the environmental
destruction and related social upheaval caused
by unfettered extraction of resources continues
unabated. As one of the world’s most importdependent economies, the UK must now conducta ‘Stern-for-Resources’, going beyond specific
The land and water footprints of everyday products 5

Introduction

How much land and water are needed to keep the
global population clothed, fed and watered? And
how much more is needed to supply that population
with electronic gadgets? As global consumption
levels rise, the natural resources that underpin
everything that we produce are under increasingpressure – with knock-on effects for the economy.
This report explores the environmental footprintsof everyday products, tracing their impacts throughthe supply chain. While standard economic models
examine the financial costs of products, thefootprinting approach allows us to assess natural
resource costs, from the amount of land, materials
and water used, through to the greenhouse gas
emissions. This report focuses on the footprints
generated by land and water use.
All products, from a cup of tea to a cotton t-shirt,
have resource costs and these costs accumulate
across the supply chain. The footprint of a t-shirt,
for example, includes the resources used to growand harvest the cotton, turn this into fabric andmanufacture into the final garment. Each of thesestages requires varying amounts of land, water,material and energy.
Measuring levels of resource use at each stage ofthe supply chain provides valuable information forcompanies about the extent of their resource use
and shows how efficient their production processes
are in resource terms. It can also help identify areas
where supply chains might be vulnerable.
Supply chain footprints can also be scaled up,
providing policy makers and politicians with avaluable oversight of the overall efficiency of theeconomy.
To find out more about the environmental
impacts of everyday products, Friends of the
Earth commissioned environmental data analysts,
Trucost, to model the land and water footprints ofdifferent items. These included a range of consumer
items from food and beverages to clothing andsmartphones. The results, based on the modelled
outputs, are presented in this report.

6

Resource use in the supply chain

What is resource footprinting?
Land and water footprints are two of the four key
footprints increasingly being used to measure
resource consumption. These four footprints
measure land (hectares), material (tonnes),
greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide
equivalents) and water use (litres) across the supply
chain.
The four footprints approach was developed by
Friends of the Earth with the Sustainable Europe
Research Institute (SERI),1 and can be applied toindividual products, to companies, entire sectors orindeed the whole economy. The approach has been
adopted by a number of different bodies, including
the European Resource Efficiency Platform,2 theEuropean Commission’s Roadmap to a Resource
Efficient Europe3, and forthcoming non-binding
guidance for companies’ non-financial reporting
requirements under the recently revised Accounting
Directives4.
This report focuses on land and water – resourcesthat are essential for any manufacturing process,but which are in finite supply and which face
increasing demand. The examples presented inthis report therefore do not include material or the
more widely available greenhouse gas emissions
footprints, which would provide equally significant
information about a product’s impact on people andthe natural world. Nonetheless it important whenlooking at the footprints of products, companies,
economies and so on, to consider all four footprints
together. This allows a holistic understanding of
the resources required, and can show how theyvary against one another when different productdesigns, business models or economy-level policies
are explored.
The data and analysis on product and company
footprints are provided by Trucost. The views
expressed in interpreting this data belong to Friendsof the Earth. Whilst every care has been taken by
Trucost in calculating data, Trucost accepts noliability whatsoever for any loss (including without
limitation direct or indirect loss and any loss of profit,
data, or economic loss) occasioned to any person nor
for any damage, cost, claim or expense arising fromany reliance on this report or any of its content.

How is footprinting useful?
Footprinting allows manufacturers to better
understand their dependence on finite natural
resources – and to adapt their business models
to improve resource efficiency, as evidenced byprogress made by companies in cutting greenhousegas emissions. It also allows policy makers to better
understand the relationship between economic
activity and natural resource use.
The advantage of footprinting across the range ofresources is that it can provide an overview of thewhole supply chain, measuring the use of different
resources across the manufacturing process. Whilein some case, companies opt to look at part of theirfootprint (e.g. within one country), an overview ofthe whole supply chain enables manufacturers tobetter understand their environmental costs andmakes it easier to address any risks or constraints
that they face.
Similarly an overview allows policy makers toconsider the full resource picture, rather thanignoring impacts that happen overseas, or viewing
one aspect (such as carbon) in isolation. Taking
such a narrow approach often simply displaces
the problem, as for example in the case of biofuel
production, where attempts to reduce greenhousegas emissions by substituting fossil fuels with
agricultural crops led to rising food prices because
the impacts on land use were not considered).

Photo: Gold Mine in Australia.
Credit: Thinkstock

The land and water footprints of everyday products 7

How does footprinting work?
In the footprint approach, the water footprint
is broken down into blue, green and grey water,
to give a more in depth understanding of water
demand. Blue water refers to the extraction of fresh
water from groundwater, lakes and rivers; green
water refers to rainwater; and grey water refers to
the amount of water needed to safely dilute any
pollutants that are produced. The true impact ofthese footprints may depend on the location andon whether there are competing demands. As
global demand for water grows, the water footprintprovides a valuable indicator for businesses facing
potential constraints.

The land footprint simply reflects the amountof land required. This same principle – that thefootprints reflect actual totals of the resourceuse, without judgements as to how they are used,applies to all four footprints. Land and water
footprints on their own do not say anything about
the value or quality of the resources being used.
A land footprint does not imply that a product isnecessarily manufactured using pristine wilderness
or prime agricultural land. The true impact of theland footprint depends on the nature of the land,
how it is used, and on whether there are competinguses. Even so this information is vital to providing
a headline account of the demand for natural
resources.
Photo: Bangka, Indonesia
Credit: Ulet Ifansasti/Friends of the Earth

8

Resource use in the supply chain

The footprint approach does not directly reveal
ecological or social impacts, such as child labour orpoor working conditions, but it can indicate issues
which may cause these problems. A large blue water
footprint in an area prone to water shortages islikely to suggest potential problems with other water
users who may depend on the same resource forsustaining ecosystems or irrigating farmland. A large
grey water footprint suggests there is a high level ofpollutants, possibly hazardous chemicals, which are
likely to affect the workforce and local environment.
A large land footprint may also reveal the potential
for conflict with local communities if land is in short
supply.
In time sufficiently robust and communicablebiodiversity and pollution indicators could berecorded alongside the four footprints’ account of
resource use. These should also be accompanied
by social indicators including human rights impacts
and labour conditions.

What the footprints in this report
represent
For this report, the water footprint of products is thetotal volume of water required to make that product.
The units are therefore litres.
For this report the water footprint of companies
is the amount of water required to sustain thatcompany’s operations during the financial year
2011-2012, i.e. for one year. If you wanted to
extrapolate these estimates so that they gavean estimate of what companies or sectors usedannually then the units would be litres per year (l/yr).
For this report, the land footprint of products is thetotal amount of land required to make that product,even if that land has been used over several years.
For this report the land footprint of companies is theamount of land required to sustain that company’s
operations in the financial year 2011/2012. If you
wanted to extrapolate these estimates so that theygave an estimate of what companies or sectors usedannually then the units would be kilometres squared
per year ((k)m2/yr).

The methodology
Friends of the Earth commissioned Trucost to
estimate the total land and water footprints ofseven generic everyday products: a cotton t-shirt,a smartphone, a cup of tea, a cup of coffee, achicken curry ready meal, a pair of leather boots,
and a chocolate bar. These products were selected
because they were all familiar everyday items
which illustrated a range of different supply chains
stretching out across the globe.
To gain a broader understanding of the scale ofthe supply chain resource demand, we also asked
Trucost to investigate individual company andsector-wide footprints for three of these products(t-shirts, chocolate bars and smartphones) as well as
the toy manufacturing sector.
To assess the footprints of these products, Trucost
used product lifecycle analysis and their own
Environmental Input-Output (EI-O) model toestimate how much land and water was needed to
produce a generic t-shirt, smartphone or chicken
curry ready meal using sector averages. The EI-O
model is based on in-depth profiles of industry
sectors which quantify the environmental impacts ofbusiness activities. This allowed Trucost to identify“hotspots” within each product’s supply chain where
resource use was highest.5
The information on the individual product footprints
was then used to estimate company footprints
based on the sectors in which they operate andtheir revenue. Sector level estimates were basedon Trucost’s EI-O model using aggregate datafrom across different sectors. As such, the figures
represent only ranges of magnitude. The model wasused to identify sector “hotspots” – the activities
across the supply chain which generate the mostsignificant environmental impacts.
The footprint models used in this report are
estimates and not accurate measures of the
footprint of a specific brand product. Trucost’s
modelling approach draws on industry data and cantherefore be taken as a useful indicator. To obtain afull picture that accurately reflected the changing
dynamics of resource use over time, companies
would need to provide a detailed breakdown of their
supply chains across all four footprints.

The land and water footprints of everyday products 9

Overview – the footprints
The footprints analysed for this report reveal
the importance of the supply chain in assessing
the impacts of any product. For almost all of the
products analysed, the main impacts of the land
and water footprints are found in the early stages ofthe supply chain and are linked to the raw materials
used.
The nature of the components used and theirdifferent supply chains determine a product’s
footprint and the level of resource use. This is also
true when it comes to assessing the footprints of
the overall economy. Different types of economies(high tech v agricultural for example) have different
footprints and different resource needs.
Products that are sourced from the agricultural
sector, including those that come from natural fibres
such as leather and cotton, as well as food and drink,tend to have significant requirements for land andfor green water. Blue water is also used for irrigating
crops, and for some manufacturing processes. Highgrey water use reflects the quantity of pollutants
created by the process.
Out of the products analysed for this report, thelargest land and water footprints were for the pairof leather boots. Supply chain analysis shows that
almost all of the demand for land (86%) is for thecattle that provide the leather. The water footprint
is made up of green water, needed to grow the
cattle feed, and grey water used both to deal withthe pollutants from cattle farming and during theleather and tanning processes.6
Leather processing requires more water if the waste
products are not dealt with in an effluent treatment
plant – however the modelling showed that leather
had the largest water footprint of all the products,
even assuming a treatment plant was used.
While the footprint for leather is large, clearlyleather is only one of the products to come fromcattle, so it shares the environmental impact ofrearing cattle with other products. The market forleather (including bags, shoes, and furniture) is
however a factor in determining the economic basis
for beef farming and the overall environmental
impacts must be taken into account.

10

Resource use in the supply chain

Even if the water used to raise the beef isdiscounted, the water footprint for leather (with nowaste treatment) still exceeds the water footprintsof the other products. In some parts of the world,such as Bangladesh, tanning plants do not generally
use or have access to waste treatment facilities.
Other products also reveal proportionately
high demands for land. The land footprint ofa smartphone, for example, is significant, withhotspots in the supply chain coming from the raw
materials used to manufacture the phone andfrom packaging. The grey water footprint for thesmartphone supply chain is also significant. This
reflects pollutants at various stages of the process,but grey water demand is particularly high forcomponent manufacturing and assembly.
The figures here assume maximum permitted
pollution levels are not exceeded. In reality
many industries around the world regularly andsignificantly breach local pollution legislation. As
the estimate for the leather grey water footprint
without water treatment shows, the grey water andtherefore total water footprints for other products,
companies and sectors are likely to be much higher
than the estimates given in this report.
The smartphone impacts can be taken as indicativeof the wider electronic sector, which includes Smart
TVs, DVD players, computers and electronics usedin other sectors, such as wind turbines, solar panelsand electric cars, all of which use similar technology
and manufacturing processing. Given the size andpredicted growth of this market, the global imprintof this sector is likely to continue to grow, raisingquestions about its resource dependence in someparts of the world.

Design matters
As the different sized footprints for the pair ofboots show, how a product is made can make a
big difference to its demand for natural resources.
The smaller footprint is based on a pair of leatherboots made from leather from a tannery that treats
its waste water at a modern treatment plant. The
larger footprint is for a pair of boots from a tannery
where the waste is not treated, polluting local
water courses, and having a far more damaging
environmental impact.

Figure 1: The water footprint of a pair ofleather boots, with and without effluent
treatment
25,024L

14,503L

Not treatedTreatedDifferent manufacturing processes affect the sizeof a product’s footprint, with some manufacturers
putting greater emphasis on efficient resource use in
their factories. The footprint given for a smartphonereflects the footprint of a generic product, basedon the data that is available. Smartphones containsimilar components, so this data reflects a typical
product, but important variations exist between
different brands, and different models. Using realworld data would allow brands to calculate far moreaccurate footprints and identify how and where to
reduce their demand for natural resources.
Modelling can provide an approximation where data
is not available, but companies can gain a far clearer
insight into their resource use from data based on
their supply chains.
Manufacturing processes and standards also varyfrom country to country as a result of different
regulations and enforcement regimes, with lower
standards of enforcement common in poorer
countries. Low costs can tempt manufacturers not to
ask too many questions about the health and safety
standards when they are outsourcing supplies – but
Friends of the Earth believes that they do have a
responsibility for the products that they sell, andthat they should be reporting on their human rights
record, alongside resource use reporting.

Photo: Farmers with their trees.
Credit: UN Women

The land and water footprints of everyday products 11

Packaging

A ‘Stern for Resources’

More than half of the land footprint for asmartphone (55%) can be traced back to demand
for materials for packaging – and packaging is also
a significant component in the footprint analysis of
the toy sector (84% of land).

Friends of the Earth and its allies are also calling
for the UK Treasury to conduct an assessment of
national resource consumption and dependency:a ‘Stern for Resources’. The 2006 Stern reporton the economic impacts of climate change
concluded that the UK’s long-term economic
health was far better served by weighting effort
towards avoiding, rather than adapting to, climatechange. Investors, manufacturers and otherbusiness leaders consistently sound the alarmthat rising resource costs and insecurity of supply
are real risks to their companies and the UK andglobal economy. Meanwhile the environmental
destruction and related social upheaval caused
by unfettered extraction of resources continues
unabated. As one of the world’s most importdependent economies, the UK must now conducta ‘Stern for Resources’, going beyond specifichigh risk materials by giving a headline accountof consumption, including how much land, water,materials and carbon are used. Doing so would
enable policy-makers to develop an effective
and evidence-based national resource strategy
for resource sufficiency and the protection of the
global environment.

Packaging often uses paper and pulp (forcardboard), which can come from a variety ofsources including trees, plants, and recycled fibre.
Softwoods are often used for corrugated boxes andpackaging. Industrial logging for timber, pulp andpaper industry have devastated vast areas of theworld’s rainforests, with companies such as Asia Pulp
and Paper and Asia Pacific Resources International
Limited (APRIL) responsible for having cleared
vast areas in Indonesian rainforest. Pressure fromindividuals and NGOs has led to efforts to reduce theimpacts of the pulp and paper industry on forests,7
but much remains to be done.

Warning signs
A large footprint does not necessarily mean there
are problems with a product’s supply chain, but it
can point to potential issues for the manufacturer.
Demand for both land and water is increasing
and can be a source of tension or conflict. A large
footprint for grey water use indicates risks from
pollution – which as in the case of untreated waste
water from the leather tanning process may provide
a warning that local water sources are being
contaminated. Large demand for land, as for theleather industry, may be putting pressure on forests
as cattle farming activities expand. In addition,
in a world facing changing climate and weather
patterns, green water can no longer be considered a
reliable resource.
Companies need to be aware of these risks in their
supply chains. Manufacturing depends on access toresources. Wasteful manufacturing processes andover-dependence on key resources can be important
issues for companies to address.
On the following pages, we examine the footprints
for our selected products and the supply chain
stories, exploring some of the real world activities
that the data represents.

12

Resource use in the supply chain

The products
Smartphone
12,760L

Leatherboots
50m2

Smartphone
18 m2

T-shirtCup of coffee
136L

4.2 m2

0.1 m23,900L
Chocolate Bar

1,430L

Leatherboots
14,503L

2.52 m2

Cup of tea
28L

0.02 m2

Chickencurry

3.62 m2

2,595LLand use

Water use

The land and water footprints of everyday products 13

The footprint of a pair of boots

The UK spent £4.3 billion on footwear in 2010 – andsales of boots and shoes are growing.8 But analysisof the footprint left by a pair of leather boots on thenatural world reveals a hefty imprint, particularly inparts of the developing world.

Figure 2: The land and water footprints ofa pair of leather boots, with and without
effluent treatment
Water

25,024L
Untreated

Land

14,503L
Treated

50m2

There are three main stages in the supply chain fora pair of leather boots, stretching across the globe.
The raw material for leather usually comes fromcattle farming (although other skins can be used).
China is the global leader in the animal skin market,
with Brazil and the United States close behind. The
boots in the model were made with cow-hide from
Brazil. The skin goes to a tannery, where it is treatedwith chemicals (often highly toxic chromium),soaked, and then dried to produce leather, before
being sent for manufacturing. Four out of every ten
pairs of shoes in the world are made in China, withthe shoe manufacturing sector also strong in Italy,
Brazil and India.9
It takes an area of land as big as a cricket pitch
to make 200 pairs of boots. The largest factor in
the land footprint for a pair of boots is from cattle
farming (86%). The size of the water footprint
however depends on where the skin is treated.
Tanneries that have effluent treatment plants havemuch smaller water footprints than tanneries that
dump their waste. If the effluent is not treated, some
10,500 extra litres of grey water are needed forevery pair of boots to deal with the chemical waste.

Leather’s unhealthy tanneries
The tannery industry in Bangladesh is concentrated
around the Dhaka suburb of Hazaribagh, where
few if any of the tanneries treat their effluent.
Hazaribagh has been ranked as the fifth mostpolluted place on Earth,10 with some 22 million
litres of toxic waste dumped in the Buriganga Riverevery day.11 Workers in the tanneries, includingchildren, are exposed to a range of dangerous
chemicals, including hexavalent chromium, a known
carcinogen. Workers and local residents report a
range of health problems, including respiratory
problems, acid burns, dizziness and nausea. The
Bangladesh government wants to move thetanneries to a new district, complete with a purpose
built effluent treatment plant, but wrangling overcosts has delayed the clean-up.12
With proper waste treatment, the water footprint
for a pair of boots is reduced by 42%, with the main
demand for water coming from the cattle farming
stage of the supply chain. Some 10,700 litres ofgreen water are used to grow the cattle feed, while
a significant quantity of grey water is required
because of the animal waste. Although leather isjust one of the products of the cattle industry, its full
impacts must be recognised.

Figure 3: Comparing volumes of blue, grey
and green water used in the productionof a pair of leather boots, with andwithout effluent treatment
30,00020,000Grey - 13,730L
15,000Resource use in the supply chain

Blue - 506L
Grey - 3,209L

10,0005000

14Blue - 506L

25,000

Green - 10,788LG

reen - 10,788L

With treatment

Without treatment

Figure 4: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain for a pair ofleather boots, with waste treatment
Land use
Agriculture
5%

Other
2%

All other raw
material
7%
Cattleranching
86%

Blue water
Packaging
6%

Leather tanning and finishing4%

Chemicalproducts
manufacturing
6%

Other
2%
Agriculture
28%

Miscellaneous
manufacturing
9%
All other raw
material
18%

Power generationand supply
27%

Grey water
Other
11%

Overall water
Cattleranching
89%

Other
4%
Cattleranching
20%

Green water
Agriculture
76%

Agriculture
100%

Assumptions
The model assumed that a pair of boots required
0.46m2 of leather, including losses from offcuts,and that an average cow produces 6.1kg of leather,with 117 cattle per km2 in a mixed system and 67
animals per km2 in a grazing system (FAO data).
Lifecycle analysis data and Trucost’s EI-O model wereused to estimate the footprints.
The land and water footprints of everyday products 15

The cotton t-shirt

The global t-shirt industry is estimated to be worth
more than US$2 billion,13 and represents just a
fraction of the increasingly globalised clothing
industry, estimated to be worth around $1,249.3bn
in 2012.14 But how much land and water are needed
to manufacture a generic cotton t-shirt?

Figure 5: The land and water footprints ofa cotton t-shirt
Land

Water

4.2m2

3,900L

where waste is not treated, the grey water footprint
would be even higher.

Fabric’s toxic footprint
Before cotton can be dyed, it is bleached which,depending on the chemicals used, produces dioxins,
which are persistent environmental pollutants
that have been linked to cancers and are known tocause reproductive and developmental problems.19
Coloured dyes are fixed using compounds whichusually include heavy metals such as cadmium,lead and mercury.20 These toxic pollutants arefound in waste water from textile factories, which
in some parts of the world may be released directly
into rivers without treatment. Even where water
treatment plants are used, some of the pollutants
are difficult to remove and so remain.21 Water
pollution from industry poses a threat to biodiversity
and to drinking water supplies.

This is based on the land and water used to
manufacture the cotton including farming thecotton, bleaching, dyeing and printing the fabric,
and manufacturing the garment.
Cotton farming is the most resource intensive partof the production process, accounting for 65% of
the overall land footprint, and 68% of the total
water use. On average, over 9,900 litres of water
are needed to grow enough cotton seed for 1 tonneof cotton textile - the equivalent of more than 120
baths of water.15 Almost one third of the overallwater use is blue water, used to irrigate the cotton
crop.

Figure 6: Volumes of Blue, Grey andGreen water in the supply chain of acotton T-shirt
4000

3500

The United States, India and China are the main
producers of cotton globally, with the United States,
India and Uzbekistan the largest exporters.16
Irrigated cotton is water intensive and cotton
is estimated to consume 3% of the total water
footprint for crop production globally.17 Cotton
farming in Uzbekistan has almost completely
drained the Aral Sea which has shrunk to 10
percent of its former volume.18

3000

Grey water demand at the cotton farming
stage is due to the nitrogen that leaches into
the groundwater from the use of fertilizer andpesticides, and demand is also high at theprocessing stage because of the pollutants frombleaching, dyeing and printing the fabric. In places

1000

16

Resource use in the supply chain

2500

Blue - 1,100L

Grey - 800L

2000

1500

500

0

Green - 2000L

Figure 7: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain for a cotton
T-shirtAssumptions

Blue water
Supportservices
7%

Raw Material(except cotton
farming5%FabricManufacturing
11%

Land
Other
1%
Packaging
20%

Cotton farming
79%

Cottonfarming65%

Rawmaterial
14%

Grey water
Other
4%

Raw Material(except cotton
farming37%

FabricManufacturing
24%

Water
Other
3%

Cotton farming
35%

Fabricmanufacturing
8%Rawmaterial
21%

Cottonfarming
68%

Green water
Raw Material(except cotton
farming
24%

These calculations assume that 667g of seed cotton
are needed to manufacture one 250g cotton t-shirt,22
and that one hectare yields 2.04 tonnes of seed cotton.23 The calculations are based on sector averages
and used life cycle analysis and Trucosts’s E I-O model to estimate the footprints. They do not represent a
specific manufacturer’s t-shirt.

Cotton farming
76%

The land and water footprints of everyday products 17

High demand for smartphones

The global market for smartphones is growing fast,with more than one billion handsets produced in
2013.24 The smartphone has revolutionised theway many of us live our lives, but these tiny pocket
computers require raw materials extracted fromacross the globe and the manufacturing process has
a significant footprint as well.
The raw materials in a smartphone include mineralssuch as lithium, tantalum and cobalt and rare metals
such as platinum all contribute to a heavy footprint
for such a small product – with the overall footprintof a generic smartphone estimated to be 18m2 ofland and 12,760L, or 160 baths, of water. Many of
the key components used in smartphones are also
used for a range of electronic devices, making thefootprint of the smartphone just a small part of thesector’s heavy resource demands.

Figure 8: The land and water footprints ofa generic smartphone
Land

Water

18 m2

12,760 L

Rare Earth Elements (REE), for example, are used
to manufacture magnets, batteries, LED lights,
speakers, circuit boards and the polished glass
screens. The global market in REE is dominatedby China, where REE mines extract a heavy toll on
the environment. Waste products include arsenic,
barium, cadmium, lead, fluorides and sulphates, witha tonne of ore generating more than 75,000L ofacidic waste water, large quantities of waste gases
and just under a tonne of radioactive residue.25

The human cost of tin
Friends of the Earth’s investigation26 into tin mining
on and around Bangka Island in Indonesia revealed
horrendous death and injury rates for the workers
involved. Tin is a key component in smartphones
and other electronic gadgets, and almost a third
18

Resource use in the supply chainof the world’s supply comes from the Indonesianislands of Bangka and Belitung. Tin mining isdevastating the local environment, destroying
coastal forests, contaminating drinking water, and inmany parts of the islands, the soil (used for growing
vegetables) has been dug away. Mining at sea hasdamaged the coral reefs, affecting fish stocks andforcing many fishermen to turn to mining for a living.
But the risks are high for these self-employed miners
who work at sea and on the land, excavating ore byhand.
As a result of Friends of the Earth’s campaign the
Dutch Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) convened
members of the Electronic Industry Citizenship
Coalition (EICC) and Friends of the Earth (FoE)
to form the IDH Indonesian Tin Working Group,
including Apple, Samsung and other leading techbrands. The group was joined at a later date by theinternational tin industry association (ITRI) andadditional corporate members from the electronics
and tin plate industry. IDH is working closely witha variety of stakeholders to positively contributeto addressing the sustainability challenges of tin
mining and smelting in Bangka and Belitung.
However, welcome as the IDH-led initiative on
Indonesian tin mining is, it’s clear that Bangka’s
story is just one of many examples of environmental
and social stress around the world, each driven by
the growing demand for new resources. Smartphone
manufacturers then, like all companies, must lookat the total resource demands of their products andbusiness models, so they can work out how to reduce
the resources required to make and sustain them.
Analysing the smartphone supply chain footprint iscomplex and some of the data is difficult to obtain.
For this reason, Trucost were not able to include
figures for the green water use for packaging, orsome grey water use from the manufacturing
process in their calculations.
From the data available, packaging accounted
for more than half of the land footprint of amobile phone, with the raw materials used in
manufacturing, such as glues and plastics (andexcluding mining and packaging), accounting fora further 39%.

Figure 9: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain for a genericsmartphone

Blue water
Other
4%

Raw materials
including Mining
and Packaging
35%

Metal
manufacturing
19%

Land
Other
1%
Mining5%

Chemicalmanufacturing
11%

Rawmaterial
39%

Packaging
55%

Assumptions

Computer andelectronic productmanufacturing
6%

Power generation
7%
Final manufacturing
and assembly
18%

Grey water
Other
4%

Overall water

Raw materials
including Mining
and Packaging
11%

Computer andelectronic productmanufacturing
14%
Other
6%
Raw materials
including Mining
and Packaging
40%

Final
manufacturing andassembly40%

Final
manufacturing andassembly63%

The analysis of the land
and water footprint ofa generic smartphoneassumed average company sales of 63 million
smartphones a year,
an average market
price of US$351, andthat typical packaging
contains an average of
50% recycled content.
Truprint’s E I-O model
was used to estimate
the generic footprints,
with publicly-available
information used toestimate global sales of
the top ten companies.
Additional information
made it possible torefine the calculations
for the company level.

Computerand electronic
product
manufacturing
22%

Green water

Worked to death?
Smartphone and other electronic device
manufacturing is usually outsourced to factories in
China, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan, where
there have been numerous allegations of poor
working conditions, use of child labour, and abuseof workers. iPhone manufacturer Apple claims toaudit its suppliers, but has faced allegations of poor
working conditions, with reports of worker suicides
at Chinese factories run by the Foxconn Technology
Group.27 In 2013, the audit report found evidence ofexcessive working hours, failure to protect juvenile
workers and discriminatory practices. Apple asks
suppliers to comply with a maximum of 60 working
hours a week.28 In late 2012, Apple announced
it was moving some of its manufacturing to theUnited States, although much of the production still
remains overseas.29
Analysis of the water footprint showed that
manufacturing of the components and assembly
accounted for the largest sector of overall wateruse (40%) with grey water, used to dilute pollutants,
accounting for almost all (95%) of this. Thiscan be attributed to the chemicals in the glues
and lubricants used in the manufacturing of thecomponent parts, stretching back through the
supply chain.

Raw materials
including Mining
and Packaging
100%

Figure 10: Volumes of Blue, Grey andGreen water in the supply chain of ageneric smartphone
15,00012,000Blue - 1,460L

9,000

6,000

Grey - 7,590L

3,000Green - 3,720L
0

The land and water footprints of everyday products 19

Miners sift through sandlooking for tin ore at amine in Tanjung Pesona,District Sungai Liat, Bangka,Indonesia.
Mining on the island isdominated by state-owned
PT Timah which runs theworld’s largest tin smelting
operation, processing
50,000 tonnes of tin a year.

Tea or coffee?

The UK drinks around 165 million cups of tea and an
estimated 70 million cups of coffee every day,30 but
what are the land and water footprints of a cup of
our daily brew?

Figure 11: The land and water footprintsof tea and coffee per cup

Figure 12: Volumes of Blue, Grey andGreen water in the supply chain of tea
and coffee
150Blue - 2L

Grey - 7L

120

Land

90

0.1m2

0.02 m2

60
Green - 127L

CoffeeTea

Blue - 3L

30

Grey - 2L
Green - 23L

0
Water
136L

28L

CoffeeTea

While tea has been described as the UK’s national
drink, most of the world’s tea comes from China.31
Grown on plantations, primarily in tropical andsubtropical climates, and generally at a highaltitude, tea bushes need rainfall to produce theirharvest. The tips of the tea leaves are picked anddried before being blended and packaged, often intea bags.
Most of the land footprint for tea comes from thetea-farming stage of the supply chain, with small
amounts of land also needed to produce materials
for packaging. Most of the water is green water,
again at the farming stage, but the water footprint
also includes water used to brew the tea (taking an
average cup to contain 250ml).

22

Resource use in the supply chain

CoffeeTea

Coffee is grown in more than 50 different countries,
but most of the world’s supply is sourced fromCentral and South America.32 Coffee’s land footprint
comes primarily from land for growing the crop.
Traditionally coffee was grown under a shaded
canopy of trees, but rising demand has pushed
farmers to increase productivity by growing in thesun – as a result 2.5 million acres of forest in Central
America have been cleared to make way for coffee
farming.33
A cup of coffee requires almost five times as muchwater as a cup of tea, with most of this due to thequantities of green water needed to grow the crop.
Coffee’s footprint also includes more than twice asmuch grey water as tea (seven litres per cup), mainly
as a result of the way the coffee beans are treatedafter harvesting. The harvested coffee beans haveto be sorted by size and then soaked in water toremove the gelatinous outer layer, washed, rinsed
and dried, and this produces significant quantitiesof polluted waste water. There is an alternative dry
method which needs less water, but it can only be
used in drier climates.34 Some grey water demandcomes from the manufacturing process when water
can be used to cool the roasted beans.35 Where
coffee is decaffeinated, CO2 or water is used todissolve the caffeine, increasing the amount of grey
water required.36

Figure 13: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain for a cup of
tea and a cup of coffee
Tea

CoffeeLand

Packaging
4%

Other phases
each <1%

All other raw
materials
7%

Packaging5%
All other raw
materials
9%

Tea farming
90%

Other
3%

Coffeefarming
87%

Blue water
Miscellaneous
Manufacturing
9%

Power generationand supply
3%

Power
generationand supply
22%
Tea farming
94%
Other
3%

Other phases
each <1%

All other raw
materials
12%

Grey waterTransportation
10%

DirectManufacturing
23%

Packaging
2%

Other
7%
Tea farming
85%

Coffeefarming48%

Packaging
9%

Coffeefarming66%

Packaging
4%

Green water

Coffeefarming
100%

Tea farming
100%

Please note: the values in these charts represent
data supplied by Trucost and contain rounding errors
introduced through their modelling process. This has
resulted in a total of over 100%

Assumptions
The calculations assume that 3g of tea and 250 ml ofwater are used to produce a cup of tea, and that 7gof coffee and 125ml of water are used to produce a
cup of coffee. The footprints were estimated based on
Trucost’s E I-O model.
The land and water footprints of everyday products 23

The footprint of a chocolate bar

The UK chocolate industry is worth £3.96 billion andat a global level, the industry is predicted to growby 35% over the next five years. In the UK, people
eat, on average, three bars of chocolate each every
week.37 But what is chocolate’s footprint on theenvironment?

of the blue water required is for the sugar content.
Sugar cane is a plantation crop, and relies on
irrigation in most parts of the world to maximise
yields. Grey water is also required to deal with
pollutants from the farming stages of the milk andeggs used to manufacture the chocolate.

Figure 14: The land and water footprints
of a 100g bar of milk chocolate

The footprint of a bar of chocolate does not reveal
anything about the social conditions of the cocoa
growers. Chocolate manufacturers have faced
numerous allegations regarding the use of childlabour in cocoa supply chains, and Nestlé is currently
facing legal action in the United States from a groupof children who allege they were trafficked by cocoa
growers into Côte d’Ivoire where they were to work incocoa fields that supplied cocoa to Nestlé and othercompanies.39

Land

Water

Assumptions

2.52 m2

1,430L

Across the whole supply chain, the water footprint
was made up of 50 litres of blue water, 1,350 litres ofgreen water, and 30 litres of grey water
Most of the land and water used to produce a bar of
chocolate is needed to produce the raw ingredients:
the cocoa, sugar and the milk, with the cocoa
needing the largest share overall. Cocoa comesfrom the cacao bean, which grows on trees in wet
lowland tropical climates, with global coca farming
centred on West Africa. The Côte d’Ivoire is theworld’s largest producer of cacao beans.38
Cacao beans are harvested by hand, fermented,
dried and then shipped to chocolate manufacturers,
where they are roasted, ground and blended tomake cocoa butter and cocoa paste. The biggest
chocolate manufacturers are based in the UnitedStates and Switzerland (with the Swiss consuming
the most chocolate per capita in the world).

The footprint calculations for a 100g bar of milk
chocolate assumed that the chocolate contained 33gof cocoa paste, 13g of cocoa butter, 33g of cane sugarand 20g of milk powder. Trucost used a literature
review combined with its E I-O model and life cycle
analysis to estimate the footprints involved.

Figure 15: Volumes of Blue, Grey andGreen water in the supply chain of a 100g
bar of milk chocolate
1500
Blue - 50L
Grey - 30L

1200

900

Green - 1,350L

Analysis of land and water use across the
supply chain for the whole of the chocolate andconfectionary sector shows that producing the raw
ingredients accounts for more than 90% of the land
footprint, and that cocoa farming accounts for two
thirds of that.
Cocoa farming is also the largest user of water
across the sector supply chain (88%). Analysis ofwater use across the supply chain shows that most
24

Resource use in the supply chain

600

300

0

Figure 16: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain for a 100g
bar of milk chocolate

Blue water
Assembly
8%

Sugar cane andbeet farming
32%

Other
10%

Land
Packaging
5%

Sugar cane andbeet farming
2%

Packaging
10%
Animal products(milk, eggs)
15%

Cocoa farming
25%

Grey water

Animalproducts(milk, eggs)
31%

Cocoa farming
62%

Overall water
Other
1%

Packaging
3%
Sugar cane andbeet farming
4%

Animal products(milk, eggs)
7%

Sugar cane andbeet farming
13%

Animal products(milk, eggs)
24%

Other
7%

Cocoa farming
45%

Food manufacturing
8%
Green water
Sugar cane andbeet farming
3%

Animal products(milk, eggs)
6%

Cocoa farming
88%

Figure 17: Land and water footprints forthe ingredients of a 100g milk chocolatebar

Cocoa farming
91%

Land

Cocoa paste

Cocoa butter

Cane sugar

Milk powder
0 m2

0.2 m2

0.4 m2

0.8 m2

0.6 m2

1 m2

Water
Cocoa paste

Cocoa butter

Cane sugar

Milk powder
0L

100L

200L

300L

400L

500L

600L

700L

800L

The land and water footprints of everyday products 25

The footprint of a ready meal

Three out of four shoppers buy ready meals,40
and the market is growing, with some estimates
predicting a 20% increase in the number of readymeals sold in the UK by 2017.41 Curry and rice isa ready-meal favourite, so we looked at its land
and water footprints and asked whether swapping
chickpeas for some of the meat made any
difference.

Figure 17: Land and water footprints inthe supply chain for a 350g chicken curryready meal with rice, and a 350g chicken
and chickpea curry ready meal with rice(half and half)
Land
4m2

3.83m2

3.62 m2

For the chicken-only meal, the chicken accounted forthe largest share of the land footprint (2.10m2 forthe chicken-only curry), but the largest demand forwater came from the curry sauce component (1,420
litres), most of which was green water used to growthe ingredients.
With growing awareness of the advantages of
reducing the amount of meat in diets, we compared
the footprint of a chicken-only ready meal with achicken and chickpea mix (replacing 50% of thechicken with chickpeas). Replacing half of thechicken with chickpeas led to an increase in theland and blue and green water footprints, but thegrey water footprint decreased as industrial chicken
farming produces more pollutants than growing
chickpeas.

Figure 18: Comparison of volumes ofBlue, Grey and Green water in the supply
chain for different components of thealternative chicken and chicken/chickpea
meals

3.5 m23 m2
2.5 m22 m2
1.5 m2Grey Water

Green Water

Blue Water

1 m21500 L

0.5 m20 m2

Chicken curryready meal

Chicken/chickpea
curry ready meal

1200 L

Water

600 L

Blue - 163 LBlue - 168 L

2500 L
Grey - 615 L

Grey - 450 L

Green - 1817 L

Green - 1872 L

Chicken curryready meal

Chicken/chickpea
curry ready meal

500 L
0L

26

0L
Chicken1500 L
1000 L

300 L

Chicken3000 L

2000 L

Chickpea

900L

Resource use in the supply chain

Chicken and
Chickpea

Sauce

Rice

Chicken used in ready meals usually comes fromfactory farms and is often imported into the UK.
The footprint model for the chicken curry assumed
the chicken was sourced from a Thai factory farm,where poultry are typically fed on concentrated feed
composed of maize, soybean, rice and fishmeal.
Thailand is a major exporter of chicken to the UK,with imported chicken frequently used for readymeals and the catering industry.42

Factory farms
Broiler chickens raised in intensive (factory) farms
are selectively bred to put on weight and fed a
special diet, with many birds slaughtered for meat
after around 40 days.43 The Thai chicken industry
specialises in the export of boneless chicken, andvertically integrated commercial farms accountfor some 70% of poultry production. An average
Thai poultry farm has some 37,000 birds.44 Welfare
conditions for the chickens are reported to be better
than on similar UK farms, with 13 birds per square
metre, slower growing breeds, and longer periods ofdarkness45 allowing birds to rest, although birds do
not have the freedom to roam offered by free range
farms.
Concerns have been raised about the conditionsof workers in the poultry industry, with high levels
of injury and safety concerns.46 Cases of traffickedlabour and debt bondage have been reported in the
UK industry.47

Figure 19: Distribution of land use acrossthe supply chain for chicken, chickpeas
and rice
Land use chicken
Other
7%

Farming93%

Land use chickpeas
Other
2%

While the carbon footprint of the chicken curry was
not included in this model, other studies suggestthat the carbon footprint from a chicken-only currywould be far higher than for a chicken and chickpea
meal. 48
Higher welfare standards, or the use of free-rangeor organic chickens may increase the footprintof a chicken curry because of the need for moreland as the birds move about more needing moreenergy – showing that increased resource use canin some situations reflect higher ethical standards.
Innovative use of by-products and safe foodwaste as feed could reduce this impact. Animal
welfare standards are not reflected in the footprint
approach. Reducing consumption to accommodate
higher standards as well as reducing resource use isanother solution.

Farming98%

Land use rice
Packaging
2%
Other rawmaterials
10%

Farming88%

Analysis of the supply chain for each of thecomponents of the chicken curry meal showed thatby far the largest share of the land footprint was dueto the land needed for farming.
Assumptions
The footprint for the chicken curry meal assumed that a 350g meal contained
147g of chicken, 203g of sauce plus 100g of rice added, and 73.5g of chicken
and 73.5g of chickpeas in the 50% chickpea meal. Lifecycle analysis data andTrucost’s EI-O model were used to estimate the footprints.

The land and water footprints of everyday products 27

Scaling up

What does the footprint of a bar of chocolate mean
for the confectionary industry? Or for the amount ofland needed by global confectionary giant Nestlé?
How much water is needed to connect the world
through smartphones and electronic devices? And
how much do the companies involved know about
the levels of resources they depend on?
Building on the supply chain footprints of theselected everyday products, Friends of the Earthasked Trucost to model the footprints of leading
companies from the clothing, confectionary andsmartphone markets, and to look at the sector level
footprints for these areas and the toys sector toprovide a broader insight into the scale of resource
demand.
The data revealed vast differences in the scale ofresource use for the different sectors, with ten of
the top companies in the confectionary sector using
more than 20 times as much land and water as tenof the top companies in the fashion sector.
Understanding how the footprints of individual
products scale up at the company and sector levelis crucial for companies as it provides an overview
of their overall demand for natural resources.
We wanted to know how much land the leading
manufacturers such as Gap and H&M need tokeep shops stocked with their products, and how
much grey water is needed to manufacture Apple’ssmartphones.
Trucost’s models rely on a generic product data andcompany and sector level revenue flows. As suchthey cannot distinguish individual good practice,such as where companies reduce their land andwater footprints by maximising their use of recycled
packaging. Only the company’s own data, basedon its actual products and performance, could
reflect its own product designs and business model.
However the Trucost data are able to give an ideaof the magnitude of individual companies’ land andwater use and the associated risks and impacts thatthey represent. As such they represent a company’s
size not their environmental performance in termsof efficiency. Sector level estimates were based on
Trucost’s EI-O model using aggregate data fromacross different sectors. This allowed Trucost to
identify sector “hotspots” or the activities within the
supply chain which generate the most significant
environmental impacts.
28

Resource use in the supply chain

Photo: Deforestation in the Amazon
Credit: istockThe land and water footprints of everyday products 29

The retail clothing sector

A single t-shirt requires just under 4 litres of water andjust over 4m2 of land – but how does that add up for
global retailers who sell millions of t-shirts and othergarments every year?

from packaging, with the largest demand for land
and water for farming – i.e. growing the cotton.
Processing other raw materials, such as the fabricdyes, also adds to water demand.

Friends of the Earth asked Trucost to estimate theland and water demand for ten of the top clothing
manufacturers and to assess the scale of the impact
in this sector. Their models estimate that the leading
global clothing retailer Gap Inc uses the equivalentof 96,000 cricket grounds of land, an area almost
as large as Greater London49. Gap required 72,000
Olympic pools’ worth of ‘blue’ water and depended
on 415 billion litres (that’s roughly the weight of 70
million elephants50) or more than 166,000 Olympicsized swimming pools’ worth of ‘green’ water in
2011/251. Given that green, and so also blue, watersupplies are increasingly under threat in some partsof the world as a result of climate change, this is asignificant resource demand. Trucost estimated that
Gap also required nearly 40,000 Olympic pool’s worthof ‘grey’ water to safely dilute pollutants. The model
suggests that Gap’s overall water demand is morethan 694 billion litres, meaning Gap’s total demand
for water is equivalent to just under 280,000 Olympic
pools’ worth of water.
H&M’s resource requirements are not far behind,requiring an estimated equivalent of almost 82,000
cricket pitches of land and enough water to fill236,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Trucost’s grey water calculations assume that legal
limits on pollution discharges are met but there isa strong likelihood that this is not the case in somecountries. This means that these figures are likely
to significantly underestimate the actual amountof water required. Companies vary in their ability
and willingness to get to grips with pollution in their
supply chains, and discharge data are hard find.
Looking at the leading 10 companies in the sector,
the model found that the land footprint covered a
5,700 km2 area – the equivalent of 382,000 cricket
pitches or almost four times the size of Greater
London. The combined footprint for blue, green andgrey water adds up to 2,800 billion litres of water – orover one million Olympic-sized swimming pools –although the actual figure is potentially far higher
than this as a result of failure to deal with pollution.
Sector analysis reveals that 20% of the land
footprint in the clothing retail industry comes
30

Resource use in the supply chain

Picture: boats on the dry Aral Sea.
Credit: Ismael AlonsoFigure 20: Estimated land and water footprints of ten of the largest companies’
operations in the Men and Women’s Cut and Sew Apparel Manufacturing sector(Based on 2011/12 sales data)

Water
Gap Inc.

Blue Water

H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB
Next PLC

Grey Water

Esprit Holdings Ltd.
Arcadia Group

Green Water

Benetton Group
American Eagle Outfitters
Urban Outfitters Inc.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Guess? Inc.
French Connection Group0100bn L

200bn L

300bn L

400bn L

500bn L

600bn L

700bn L

800bn LLand
Gap Inc.
H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB
Next PLC
Esprit Holdings Ltd.
Arcadia Group
Benetton Group
American Eagle Outfitters
Urban Outfitters Inc.
Abercrombie & Fitch Co.
Guess? Inc.
French Connection Group0500 km2

1,000 km2

1,500 km2

The land and water footprints of everyday products 31

The smartphone sector

We asked Trucost to estimate the land andwater footprints for the top ten smartphone
manufacturers. A single smartphone’s footprint
for land extends to almost 18m2 – with 1 billion
handsets produced in 2013, that’s 18 billion m2of land.
Market leader Samsung alone produced more than
95 million handsets in 2011, the year on whichthese estimates are based, leaving a footprint of
1,700 km2 based on a generic smartphone – anarea greater than the size of Greater London. The
company’s estimated overall water footprint basedon smartphone sales added up to 1,200 billion litres,
most of which came from grey water (59%).
Looking at the company as a whole (i.e. not just at
smartphone sales), Samsung’s overall land footprint
is estimated at 19,000 km2 – that’s an area the sizeof Wales, or 12 times the size of Greater London.
Company-wide water use came 8,400 billion litres.
At the company level, Apple was not far behind, withan estimated land footprint of 13,600 km2 (morethan eight times the size of Greater London) and an
overall water footprint of 6,200 billion litres.
Grey water use for the electronics sector as a whole
can be seen as a problem because of the high levelof polluting substances used by workers in the
manufacturing process.
A tin ore mine in Nudur, Bangka, run by PT
Timah mining company, which dominates
the tin business on the Indonesian island.

32

Resource use in the supply chain

Final manufacturing and assembly counts for 40%
of overall water use in the sector, with grey waterused to dilute pollutants accounting for 95% of
this52. As with other sectors, Trucost calculations
assume that pollution limits are complied with,meaning that their model may be underestimating
actual grey water footprints in regions where
illegal discharge is commonplace. Studies in China
have shown serious problems resulting from illegal
chemical discharges into water courses fromfactories making electronics contaminating local
water supplies, threatening agriculture and putting
human health at risk.53
Based on smartphone sales data, the land footprint
for smartphone sales for nine of the top ten
manufacturers stretched to 7,200 km2 in 2011/2012
and the water footprint, including blue, grey andgreen water was 200 billion litres that year. Looking
at the overall company footprints, land-use came to
57,900 km2, or an area almost three times the size ofWales, and the companies used 22,000 billion litresof water, three times as much water as there is in
Loch Ness, Britain’s largest water body by volume.
Analysis of sector-wide land hotspots show that thegreatest demand for land is for packaging materials(55%) with raw materials – including plastics andother non-extractive resources accounting for 39%.

Figure 21: Estimated land and water footprints for the total operations of nine of thebiggest smartphone makers (based on 2011/12 sales data. See Appendix 2 for productrange information)
Water
Samsung Electronic

Blue Water

Apple Inc.
Grey Water

Nokia Oyj
Blackberry Ltd.

Green Water

HTC Corporation
Sony Corp
LG Electronics
Motorola Solutions Inc.
ZTE Corp.
0

2000bn L

4000bn6000bn L

8000bn L

10,000bn L

Land
Samsung Electronic
Apple Inc.
Nokia Oyj
Blackberry Ltd.
HTC Corporation
Sony Corp
LG Electronics
Motorola Solutions Inc.
ZTE Corp.
05000 km2

10000 km2

15000 km2

20000 km2

Please note that these footprints relate to thetotal output of these companies, in some cases
across several sectors of electronic goods. See
Appendix 2 on page 39 for a full list of which
products are accounted for in the footprints ofthese companies.
The land and water footprints of everyday products 33

The chocolate and confectionary sector

With the global chocolate industry expected to
grow by 35% over the next five years, there is every
reason for the confectionary sector to consider its
growing land and water footprints. We asked Trucost
to estimate the footprints for ten leading companies
in the chocolate and confectionary sector – howmuch land does Kraft Foods or Nestlé require tosatisfy our global sweet tooth?
Trucost’s models estimate that a single 100g
bar of milk chocolate required 2.5m2 of land and1,400 litres of water. Looking at chocolate andconfectionary production for the major companies
implied that market leader Kraft Foods land
footprint extended to 31,600 km2 or an area thesize of Belgium. Nestlé was close behind with a land
footprint of 27,600km2. Kraft Foods overall water
footprint for chocolate and confectionary wasestimated to require more than 7 million Olympicsized swimming pools of water, at nearly 18,000
billion litres of water.54
Photo: extracting cocoa. Credit:
Bread for the world

34

Resource use in the supply chain

Taking the overall impact of chocolate andconfectionary production for ten of the largest
companies, the overall land footprint was estimatedto extend over 125,000 km2, an area almost the sizeof England (130,000km2). Overall water use wasestimated at 70,000 billion litres, the equivalent of
28 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, of which
95% was green water. The main hotspot for water
use was for cocoa farming.
The confectionary industry’s high demand forgreen water may present challenges in areas whereclimate change is making rainfall less reliable.

Figure 22 Estimated land and water footprints of ten of the largest companies’
operations in the Chocolate and Confectionery Manufacturing from Cocoa Beanssector (Based on 2011/12 sales data)
Water
Kraft Foods Inc.

Blue Water

NestleMars

Grey Water

Hershey Co.
Barry Callebaut AG

Green Water

Meiji Holdings Co. Ltd.
Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Spruengli AG Pref
Hsu Fu Chi Intl Sgd
Orion Corp.
Lotte Confectionery Co. Ltd.
Thorntons PLC
Tiger Brands Ltd.
Orkla ASA
05,000bn L

10,000bn L

15,000bn L

20,000bn L

Land
Kraft Foods Inc.
NestleMars
Hershey Co.
Barry Callebaut AG
Meiji Holdings Co. Ltd.
Chocoladefabriken Lindt & Spruengli AG Pref
Hsu Fu Chi Intl Sgd
Orion Corp.
Lotte Confectionery Co. Ltd.
Thorntons PLC
Tiger Brands Ltd.
Orkla ASA
0

10,000 km2
5,000 km2

20,000 km2
30,000 km2
2
15,000 km
25,000 km
35,000km2
2

The land and water footprints of everyday products 35

The toy and games sector

The global toy and games industry is expanding
rapidly with predictions suggesting it will be worth
around $100 billion by 201555. Children (and adults)
are consuming more and more – from robotic
pets to traditional board games, dolls and cuddly
toys. British parents buy on average 41 toys per
year56 – with top selling items for 2014 looking set
to include smart children’s watches, TV games andTransformer robots57.

product manufacturing also requires significant
amounts of grey water, and chemical manufacturingneeds blue water, accounting for 3% of the total
water use.

The global toy sector was, until recently, dominatedby US company Mattel but Danish company Lego
has now taken first place, with Hasbro third58.
But changing tastes and growing demand mean
the market is shifting from the traditional toy
makers towards apps, video games and interactive
electronic toys59 – and as a result the footprint of
the toy sector is changing too. We analysed theland and water hotspots for the global toy sector,
covering dolls, toys and game manufacturing.
By far the biggest factor affecting the land use of
the toy sector was demand for packaging materials– an estimated 267,000m2 or 27 cricket pitches forevery US$1 million of sector revenue, accounting for
84% of the total land use.
Some toy manufacturers have sought to solve thepackaging imprint by seeking out more efficientsolutions, for example selling toy building bricks in
re-usable storage bags60. While this may appeal
to consumers, more durable packaging is likely toincrease the footprint of the packaging as moreresources are used.
Toy manufacturers and designers seeking to reduce
the environmental impacts of packaging need torealise that using plant-based materials will increase
the land and water footprints of the product. Moreemphasis needs to be put on reducing demand andphasing out the need for packaging materials.
While the resource use for packaging is significant
in this sector, footprint analysis shows that the
products themselves also require significant land
and water for raw materials. The largest demand
for water is for agricultural raw materials, with 84%
of this demand for green water. Raw materials,
which include wood, textiles, glues, paints andresins also account for most of the grey water used,although almost one fifth of the grey water use canbe attributed to the packaging. Plastic and rubber
36

Resource use in the supply chain

Photo: red christmas stocking filled with presents.
Used as a christmas e-card
Credit: istockFigure 23: Distribution of land and water
use across the supply chain of the toy andgames sector

Land

Packaging84%

Blue water
Agricultural raw
materials
15%

ChemicalManufacturing
14%

All other raw
materials
1%

Manufacturing
and Assembly
9%

Agricultural raw
materials
34%

Power
generationand supply
4%

All other Raw
Material
2%

Packaging
37%

Grey water

Overall water
ChemicalManufacturing
3%
Manufacturing
and Assembly3%
Packaging
9%

Other
3%

Agricultural raw
materials
82%

Other
8%
Support services
8%

Agricultural raw
materials
53%

Plastics
and Rubber
Products
Manufacturing
9%
Packaging18%
All other Raw
Material
2%

Green water

Agricultural raw
materials
100%

The land and water footprints of everyday products 37

Recommendations

A role for companies
To assess how well companies are currently doing
on measuring their footprints, Friends of the Earthexamined the corporate social responsibility (CSR)
records of the top ten best-selling smartphone
manufacturers. Using publicly available data, either
provided directly by the company in reports oronline, or indirectly through data disclosure projects
such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, we assessed
how many footprints were being measured by thecompany, and the extent to which they measured
across their supply chain.
We found that companies were starting to makeprogress on footprint reporting, particularly forgreenhouse gas emissions and in some cases, also
reporting on some form of blue water use (in somecases at a global level). Sony and Samsung also
report on grey water use, and Sony reports on green
water use in Japan and China. Several companies
identified water supply risks, where suppliers are
based in water stressed regions. Only one company,
Nokia, reported on its land footprint. Sony is the only
company measuring its annual global raw material
use – which it measures across the supply chain.
This assessment has been extended by colleagues
at Friends of the Earth in the Netherlands, who haveassessed the responsibility of a range of electronic
gadget manufacturers61.
While some companies have clearly recognised
the benefits of measuring some, if not all of
their impacts, it is clear that voluntary action bycompanies can only achieve so much. A common
approach for companies working within a sector
would make it easier for companies to obtain
information from their supply chains, and would
provide a more coherent picture of their impacts forthe public and for investors.
As well as reporting on their resource use, Friendsof the Earth also supports the need for companies
to report on their social impacts and human rights
record, and on the further environmental concernsof pollution and impacts on biodiversity.

A role for government
Because Friends of the Earth believes there is a limit
to what can be achieved through voluntary action,
38

Resource use in the supply chain

we have been calling for stronger legislation torequire large companies to report on the social andenvironmental impacts of the products they sell,
including through the supply chain. Footprints are avaluable tool in delivering this.
In April 2014, a European directive was passed which
will require some large companies to do this, althoughgaps in the legislation mean that only publicly-listedcompanies are included. This means that five out of
six large companies in the European Union will not
be required to report. There is also no requirement touse common reporting methods, or for reports to be
fully audited. And companies will not be required todisclose the full impact of their operations or the risks
that they face.
Friends of the Earth believes that recent changes in
the legislation do however represent an opportunity
for companies to provide meaningful reports on
the nature of their activities and to act on impacts
which are damaging to the environment. The UK
Government has a role to play in developing andstrengthening company reporting legislation andencouraging best practice in UK companies and at
European level.

Responding to public demand
There is growing awareness of the resource needs
and damaging impacts of everyday products, withmembers of the public becoming more ethicallyaware. When Friends of the Earth published details of
its investigation into tin mining in Bangka, Indonesia,
supporters inundated smartphone manufacturers
with requests to come clean. As a result of publicpressure, the companies have formed a group to lookat how they can clean up their supplies of tin.

Economy level reporting of resource
use: a ‘Stern for Resources’
In 2006 the Treasury commissioned economist Lord
Stern to review the economics of climate change,
including the relative costs of taking or avoiding
action to reduce emissions.
The review concluded that the UK’s long-term
economic health was far better served by weighting
effort towards avoiding, rather than adapting to,climate change. The argument that Stern’s review
made – that action is far cheaper than inaction – hasbeen a cornerstone of the increase in perception of
the costs and benefits of climate policy over the last
decade.
Investors, manufacturers and other businessleaders consistently sound the alarm that risingresource costs and insecurity of supply are realrisks to their companies and the UK and global
economy. Meanwhile the environmental destruction
and related social upheaval caused by unfetteredextraction of resources continues unabated.
As one of the world’s most import-dependent
economies, the UK must now take a similarly
long-sighted approach for resource use: a ‘Stern
for Resources’. This should go beyond specifichigh risk materials by giving a headline accountof consumption, including how much land, water,materials and carbon are used. These data should
then be collected annually, giving a dynamic accountof national resource consumption and dependence.
Doing so would enable policy-makers to develop
an effective and evidence-based national resource
strategy for resource sufficiency and the protection of
the global environment.

Company level reporting of resource
use
Friends of the Earth wants to see full reporting bycompanies on their use of land, water, material andgreenhouse gases.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Measuring natural resource consumption is an
essential first step in reducing resource consumption
and in so doing reducing the pressure on people andthe planet. The four footprints provide a way of doing

this which allows the full impacts of different resource
requirements to be taken into account (as opposed
to using aggregate indicators, which can easily be
distorted by a good or bad performance on any one
aspect).
By having a set of indicators, rather than one
overall indicator, a clearer picture of the balanceof resource use is given, and trade-offs are mademore visible. Measuring the four footprints makes it
possible to monitor shifts in environmental pressure
such as from fossil-based to bio-based products
and energy systems, as illustrated by the impactsof the Renewable Fuels Obligation, which focused
exclusively on greenhouse gas emissions, masking theimpact on demand for land and the effect on foodprices. The four footprints provide a well-foundedbasis for informing decisions as to product andbusiness model redesign, and policy making andtarget setting.
Friends of the Earth believes that all large companies
should be required to examine the resource footprintsof their supply chains. And should be obliged by law
to report on their use of land, water, materials andcarbon, including use throughout their supply chain.
Friends of the Earth believes that effective reporting
should:• Build on the UN Guiding Principles on Businessand Human Rights (UNGPs) and the OECD
Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises which
are the internationally recognised minimum
normative standards, and require companies toprovide an analysis of their use of key resources
using the four footprints;• Identify the risks companies pose to society andcontribute to reducing them;• Identify risks from external threats tocompanies’ supply chains;• Cover all large companies and groups ofcompanies, including companies that are
privately-owned;• Include verification and enforcement
mechanisms to combat non-compliance ordisclosure of misleading information;• Be subject to clear guidance so that companies
know what information to include.
The new legislation must also be regularly assessed
and adapted to reflect technical progress.

The land and water footprints of everyday products 39

Appendix 1

The Trucost Environmental Model
Trucost’s environmental input-output (EI-O)
model calculates environmental impacts throughsupply chains by combining economic flows andenvironmental data. Using government census
data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis,
it identifies economic interactions between 464
business sectors. The economic data are combinedwith quantitative data on industrial facilities’
pollutant releases from sources including company
data, product life cycle analyses, the US Toxic
Release Inventory, UK Environmental Accounts,
Japanese Pollution Release and Transfer Register
and Australia’s National Pollution Inventory. The
model analyses interactions between economic
productivity and the environment.
The EI-O model estimates the amount of resources
a company uses (the inputs) to produce goods
or services (outputs), and the related level ofpollutants. Each sector also has an environmental
profile per unit of output. The model can distinguishbetween any level of the supply chain to calculate
impacts in the first-tier of suppliers all the way
through to raw materials extraction. The economic
magnitude of a sector’s input from another drives its
environmental impact, and so on through the supply
chain, until all economic flows to produce a unit ofoutput at the top of the supply chain have beenaccounted for. Based on revenue and expenditurein each business segment, the model calculates
company
environmental impacts upstream in supply chains.
The model is adjusted on an annual basis to take
into account changes in the environmental impactof a unit of output for each sector.
Text provided by Trucost.

40

Resource use in the supply chain

Appendix 2

Sectors accounted for in the footprinting of electronics companies

Company

Sectors accounted for

Samsung Electronics

Electronic computer manufacturing
Other major household appliance manufacturing
Semiconductor and related device manufacturing
Other electronic component manufacturing

Apple Inc.

Electronic computer manufacturing
Software publishers
Computer terminals and other computer peripheral
equipment manufacturing

Nokia Oyj

Broadcast and wireless communications equipment
Telecommunications
Internet publishing and broadcasting

Blackberry Ltd.

Telephone apparatus manufacturing

HTC Corporation

Broadcast and wireless communications equipment

Sony Corp.

Electronic computer manufacturing
Audio and video equipment manufacturing
Insurance carriersSound recording industries
Motion picture and video industries
Computer terminals and other computer peripheral
equipment manufacturing
Semiconductor and related device manufacturing
Magnetic and optical recording media
manufacturing
Other electronic component manufacturing

LG Electronics

Audio and video equipment manufacturing
Other major household appliance manufacturing
Telephone apparatus manufacturing
Air conditioning, refrigeration, and warm air heating
equipment manufacturing
Other electronic component manufacturing

Motorola Solutions Inc.

Broadcast and wireless communications equipment

ZTE Corp.

Broadcast and wireless communications equipment
Telephone apparatus manufacturing
Telecommunications

The land and water footprints of everyday products 41

References and notes

1.

For more information about the four footprint
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2. The European Resource Efficiency Platform
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3. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/resource_
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4. http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/
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en.htm
5. For more information about Trucost’s EI-O
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6. This reflects grey water use where no waste
treatment plant is used.
7. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/press/releases/APRILs-sustainability-policy-alicense-to-continue-forest-clearance/
8. http://www.mintel.com/press-centre/mintelcorporate/mintels-british-lifestyles-reportreveals-consumer-reaction-to-the-age-ofausterity
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Resource use in the supply chain

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fa502595
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The land and water footprints of everyday products 43