HowGood’s Water Smart attribute recognizes food products that are less of a stress on the water supply in the regions where their ingredients are produced. It is based on the Blue Water metric which takes into account both the blue water used in growing the ingredients of a product and the blue water scarcity in those respective regions. In order for a product to receive the Water Smart attribute, a product’s total blue water impact must be better than 80% of all products assessed by HowGood.

Products or ingredients produced from crops that require significant blue water resources and are grown in locations where freshwater resources are scarce will score the lowest for blue water impact. The assessment for Water Smart focuses on the conservation of blue water (ie. global freshwater) resources because increasing global demand is posing a serious risk on the water system. Water Smart products have a relatively low footprint on freshwater resources.

How does it work?

On the My Formulas page, you can select to add “Water Smart'' as a column to your dashboard. You can also sort any list of formulas by the Water Smart attribute to see which of your formulas achieve the attribute:

If your formula has achieved the attribute, you will also see that “Water Smart” is activated on the Product Impact page. If it is not activated, you can try making changes in Edit mode to see how you can achieve Water Smart for your product.

To read more about blue water and how HowGood measures blue water usage at the ingredient level, read our Blue Water article.