Water used in a site’s Supply chain representing that used in the manufacturing and provision of a product or service, but excluding Direct water use on site. In effect, it is the sum of Embedded water of all products and services.
The relevance of indirect water use is two-fold: (1) that indirect water use is often much greater than direct water use (eg. a study showed that to produce a soft drink, direct water use was 2.7 litres/litre, but indirect water use was 70 litres/litre*), and (2) that an organization can influence the volume of indirect water use through their choice of supplied products in terms of say type and geographical origin. For example, an organization may choose an agricultural product that is watered via efficient drip irrigation instead of flood irrigation.
See also Direct water use
