in february 2011, the water footprint network, in a global collaborative effort of environmental organizations, companies, research institutions and the un, launched the "global water footprint standard". in july 2014, the international organization for standardization issued "iso 14046:2014, environmental management—water footprint—principles, requirements and guidelines", to provide practical guidance to practitioners from various backgrounds, such as large companies, public authorities, non-governmental organizations, academic and research groups as well as small and medium enterprises, for carrying out a water footprint assessment. the iso standard is based on life-cycle assessment (lca) principles and can be applied for different sorts of assessment of products and companies.