| As growing of populations, increasing in urbanization and industrialization,gorwth of economy, and climate change etc, water scarcity and polluction isemerging as one of the all serious challenges of the21stcentury for human kindswhich pose threats not only to public and ecological health but also tangible businessrisks and challenges for companies. As such, it’s critical to understand how acompany uses water resources, where in the supply chain their greast water-relatedrisks lie and how to manage those issues. The water footprint is a comprehensiveindicator of freshwater resources appropriation that looks not only at direct wateruse of a consumer or producer, but also at the indirect water use. There is a growingrecognition that water shortages and pollution could be better understood andaddressed by considering production and supply chain water footprint as a whole.Thus, business’s water footprint investigation from locally to whole supply chain isuseful for corporation to develop a focused strategy to mitigate water-related risks.Water footprint (WF) is a consumption and life-cycle based indicator, whichcan be used to help the general public understand how water is consumed for varioushuman purposes by mapping the level of impact of human activity on fresh waterresources and the environment. According to WFN’ definition, water footprintconcept comprises of three components, namely the green, blue and gray WF. TheWF of a corporation comprises two components, namely the operational and supplychain WF. Either the operational or the supply chain WF could be calculated in twoalternative ways: with the chain-summation approach or the stepwise accumulativeapproach.In this paper, chain-summation approach was used as calculating theoperational WF of investigated paper mill. The WF accounting result indicated theblue WF of coated paper was4.87m3/t, and the grey WF was18.09m3/t. The supplychain WF of investigated paper mill was accounted and evaluated according toprevious research data. The accounting result showed that the WF of pulp materialsand cassava starch which were used to produce one ton of coated paper were1325.0m3/t and16.61m3/t respectively. As such, the total WF of coated paper was1357.97m3/t.In this study, handsheet forming and coating formulation trials were designedand conducted by using software Minitab16. Extreme vertices mixture design wasused to evaluate the correlation between WF of handsheet and used raw materials asformulation components varied among the specified values. The data suggested thatthe type and content of raw materials used for handsheet making would not only influence paper strength properties but also affect its WF. As indicated by the data,WF increased with the increasing of NBKP and LPKP contents and decreased as theraising of APMP, GCC and cationic starch contents. The WF of handsheet fluctuatedfrom2500.0to2800.0while the formulation components of NBKP, LBKP andAPMP varied among the specified values respectively. The result of coatingformulation trial indicated that WF of coating increased with raising starch contentand decreased as improving the contents of GCC and Clay. Starch had strongpositive effect on WF amount of paper coating compared to the other two rawmaterials-GCC and Clay. The WF of paper coating fluctuated from200.0to500.0while the formulation components of starch, GCC and Clay varied among thespecified values respectively.Corporation’s WF accounting figure itself does not indicate whether freshwateris being used sustainably along its production chain. The WF sustainabilityassessment is needed to give a better understanding on whether the production is inbalance with what local water catchments can sustainably support. In this paper,supply chain water resources context of investigated paper mill was assessed byGWT and Aqueduct’s Water Risk Atlas analysis, and operational WF was evaluatedin line with the standard method provided by WFN. The mapping results show thatonly4of the total16supply chains were operating in water stress catchment andothers were located in abundant or sufficient regions facing no environmental waterscarcity in their watersheds. The investigated paper mill was located in a watersufficient area which means there was no obvious water stress risk. The blue waterscarcity level (WSblue) for investigated paper mill was below20%, which impliedthat only a small part of blue water resource was consumed and sufficient blue watercould be obtained to sustain ecosystem in the catchment. The water pollution level(WPL) was below33%, which indicated not up to33%of assimilation capacity ofthe receiving water body has been consumed and thus had little effect on receivingwater body. Given the above assessment results, conclusions could be obtained thatthe operational WF of investigated paper mill was sustaninable and most supplychain companies were located in water sufficient area. The investigated mill’slocation, its operatioal management and its supply chain water resource statussupport the sustainability principle to produce coated paper products.Water-related business risk and sustainability challenges pose significantphysical, reputational and regulatory risks for compaies that rely on freshwater toproduce goods such as paper mills. In order to tackle these issues, WF priciplesshould be incorporated into company’ water management daily work. In this paper,principles of the IWRM approach were summarized and other NGO’s researchresults and findings such as WWF and WBCSD were incorporated to ultimatelyprovide framework and guideline for corporate water sustainable management. Themain objective of this study was to provide new insights into corporate water sustainable management for paper mill.In this paper, WF accounting and sustability assessment were performedaccording to revelant standards proposed by WFN. Study results indicated that theinvestigated paper mill demonstrated good environmental performance in line withlocal watershed permit level allowance and the majority supply chain parts includedin this paper were in watersheds with sufficient or abundant water supply.Futhermore, research data showed that supply chain ingredients such as pulpmaterias, pigments, starch etc, have a large contribution to the WF of paper productsespecially the pulp stock which is the biggest part of all raw materials. |
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