Ethical shopping just got harder – but the latest attempt to help conscientious consumers calculate their impact on the environment could do more to preserve scarce resources than all its predecessors. The concept of water footprints – or ‘virtual water’ – will tell consumers the amount of precious H2O that has been used in the manufacture of products they buy. As with carbon footprints, a ‘virtual water’ figure will indicate the extent to which a particular product has cost the earth. And, as with carbon footprints, the message is clear: less is better. A new website run by the University of Twente in the Netherlands, waterfootprint.org, gives ethically minded consumers a chance to work out the hidden implications of their shopping habits. Common commodities including groceries, clothes, stationery and electrical goods are evaluated according to a water footprint calculator. In each case, the water footprint covers both the manufacture and transport of the goods. The results are striking. An apple weighing 100g has a water footprint of 70 litres, while a 125ml cup of coffee has a water footprint twice that size, 140 litres. But the water used in producing wheat or meat is much greater. A […]