2021 Owens Corning Sustainability Report | Reducing Our Environmental Footprint | Responsible Water | 169 To help ensure that we are using and sourcing water wisely, the following strategies will drive our progress: Water Balance This refers to a site’s mass balance specific to water — looking at the amount of water going into the process, the amount of water going out, and what we do with it in between. By understanding where we are consuming water and where we might be losing water, we will be able to find opportunities to reduce our overall usage. Our understanding can be shaped through the development of loss trees and the use of focused improvement tools from Total Productive Maintenance, both of which can help position a site for greater water efficiency. Increased Efficiency Water efficiency programs such as leak detection, meter installation, and water mapping have lowered operating costs and further reduced our dependence on local or regional water sources. We also provide training to create employee and stakeholder awareness of better water use practices. By integrating water-efficient equipment into our operations whenever possible, and by performing the maintenance necessary to repair and prevent leaks, we can see noticeable reductions in our overall water use. Increased Transparency and Sustainable Design As with all our efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, we work to ensure transparency about our water use, so stakeholders can clearly evaluate our progress. One way we do that is through the life cycle assessments we perform on our core products. These comprehensive measurements of a product’s footprint help Owens Corning identify opportunities to reduce our footprint. We also conduct product stewardship reviews of our products. In 2021, we switched from our previous sustainability mapping tool to the Ecodesign Strategy Wheel. Through this powerful brainstorming tool, product designers can determine ways of ensuring product sustainability — including minimizing water use — throughout a product’s entire life cycle beginning at the initial design phase. More information about the Ecodesign Strategy Wheel can be found in the Product Innovation & Stewardship chapter in this report. Our plant in Gous-Khroustalny, Russia, recently completed a water balance and water flow diagram, which helped them decrease their water usage by 19% over the base year of 2018 . Our Water Roadmap Owens Corning’s plan to reduce water withdrawal intensity in high water-stress sites and remain flat or reduce water withdrawal intensity at all remaining sites includes the following strategies: Short-term Strategies ■ Conduct annual water risk assessments, identifying high water-stress areas for all our sites. ■ Increase water efficiency through equipment and maintenance optimization. ■ Engage employees to raise awareness of best water use practices. ■ Assess our operations for additional reuse and recycling opportunities. Medium-term Strategies ■ Deepen our understanding of water consumption through water balances and life cycle assessments. ■ Explore and test innovative water recycling technologies. ■ Engage with suppliers to understand water use and risk in the value chain. Long-term Strategies ■ Continue to explore and proceed with key investments in infrastructure. ■ Continue employee and stakeholder engagement to raise awareness of best water use practices.