All articles tagged with #water footprint
A standard cup of coffee is said to require about 140 litres of water—mostly to grow the beans (green water)—while the water you pour into the kettle is only a few hundred millilitres; the 140‑litre figure blends green, blue and gray water and can obscure where and how water stress occurs, so the real takeaway is to consider upstream farming context and sourcing when judging coffee’s environmental impact.
A peer-reviewed model estimates AI-related water use in 2025 could range from about 312.5 to 764.6 billion litres (peaking at 765 billion), driven by data-centre cooling and electricity production. It’s not a global meter reading—it's a boundary-bound estimate built from limited disclosures, meaning real totals are uncertain. Water used in manufacturing and construction is excluded. Advances in cooling and cleaner power can cut on-site use, but transparency about where AI workloads run and site-level water/power metrics is essential to clarify the footprint.
Two peer‑reviewed datasets estimate that producing one kilogram of beef from dedicated herds uses about 15,400 litres of water and emits roughly 99 kg CO2e (100-year GWP). Water use is mostly for feed; the range across systems is wide (roughly 3,000–26,000 L/kg). Emissions come mainly from enteric methane, land‑use change, and farm operations; dairy-beef has a smaller footprint (~33 kg CO2e/kg) and the global average is about 60 kg CO2e/kg. Reducing beef consumption would cut both water use and emissions, with chicken as a lower‑footprint alternative (~90% reduction for the same protein). The article notes debates on green water, GWP timeframes, and regenerative grazing, but beef remains the most environmentally intensive widely consumed food.