Carbon Disclosure Project to assess world business CO2 footprint

Yahoo News 20 Jan 08;

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a consortium of 315 top institutional investors assessing industries about their CO2 emissions, announced Sunday a new partnership to extend its global initiative to companies and suppliers.

With members including Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Allianz and HSBC that manage assets of more than 41 trillion dollars, CDP since late 2007 has been working with some of the world's largest companies to help them assess greenhouse gas emissions through their supply chains, said its CEO Paul Dickinson.

"The Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC) is a key step towards a unified business approach to climate change," he said on announcing the new partnership.

The SCLC sees the CDP teaming up with some of the largest purchasing global organizations, including Dell, Hewlett Packard, L'Oreal, PepsiCo, and Reckitt Benckiser.

They join Cadbury Schweppes, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Tesco, Imperial Tobacco, and Unilever, which signed on the third quarter of 2007.

Each SCLS member, in turn, has selected up to 50 suppliers to work with them and to respond to the CDP pilot information request in the first quarter of 2008.

The CDP information request gathers detailed information on companies' supply chains. It encourages suppliers to report carbon footprints and climate change-relevant information, such as greenhouse gas emissions data, emissions reduction targets and climate change strategy, the CDP said in a statement.

"By bringing together the purchasing authority of some of the largest companies in the world, CDP will encourage suppliers to measure and manage their greenhouse gas emissions," Dickinson said.

"This will enable large companies to work towards managing their total carbon footprint, as the first step to reducing the total carbon footprint is to measure its size."

The SCLC project will be rolled out in May 2008, and CDP is inviting more companies to join it.

The CDP was created five years ago and it gathers information on a voluntary basis that is not submitted to independent scrutiny.

More than 20 percent of the world's 500 largest companies refuse to provide information about their greenhouse gas emissions, environmental groups said.

Corporations Team Up to Cut Supply Chain Emissions
PlanetArk 21 Jan 08;

LONDON - Eleven of the world's largest companies are teaming up to see how they can work with thousands of their suppliers to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a green consultancy said on Sunday.

Cadbury Schweppes, Dell, Nestle, PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble and Tesco are amongst the companies in the scheme, called the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC).

The venture is being coordinated by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a UK-based non-profit organisation that helps companies and investors to cooperate on fighting climate change.

"Multinationals are seeking to understand where the emissions are lying in their supply chain and what risks and opportunities from climate change will be presented," Paul Simpson, chief operating officer for CDP, told Reuters.

In the scheme's pilot phase, until the end of March 2008, each organisation has selected 50 suppliers to work with, CDP said in a statement.

"We believe that partnerships between companies, suppliers, stakeholders and customers are critical to making a real difference in protecting the Earth," Tod Arbogast, computer maker Dell's director of sustainable business, said in a statement.

The Carbon Disclosure Project will publish a report after the first phase, recommending a standardised approach to emissions cuts and highlighting areas to be targeted.

The CDP will expand the scheme in its second phase, starting in May 2008, to include up to 2,000 suppliers from each participating organisation. More major companies will be invited to join in the second phase.

"When it comes to making changes in their supply chains, the purchasing organisations have a great deal of leverage over their suppliers," Simpson added.

To read the CDP's SCLC questionnaire or for further analysis on the carbon markets, log on to http://www.reutersinteractive.com

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by Anthony Barker)