The number of corporations pushing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting and reduction strategies onto their suppliers is quickly growing and will likely triple in the next five years, according to a new survey by a UK-based nonprofit.

But even as major manufacturers become more interested in tackling climate change, firms further down the supply chain are still far behind and need to catch up quickly, warn analysts with the Carbon Disclosure Project. The group compiles corporate carbon emissions data and advocates for action on climate change.

Of the 1,402 suppliers asked to provide information, just 710 companies — or 51 percent — passed along data and answered questions for the project’s second annual report on emissions reductions plans and attitudes in the manufacturing supply chain. Only 27 percent of suppliers responded to last year’s survey, which the project says represents an improvement in awareness even though suppliers still lag far behind their major corporate customers in taking steps to curb their greenhouse gas output.

Eighty-nine percent of project members say they have plans to follow the likes of Walmart, Dell and others in requiring suppliers to calculate their carbon footprints and spell out strategies for reducing them. But despite their stated intentions to get tougher on suppliers, today only 20 percent of the 2,200 companies disclosing their emissions levels say that they have the ability to accurately measure or estimate their suppliers’ output of greenhouse gas pollution.

Fifty-six percent of members tell the project that they are even prepared to go so far as dropping companies from their list of suppliers in the future, though just 6 percent said they would take those harsh steps today. Among the suppliers that did provide information for the study, just 38 percent say they have plans to calculate and reduce the emissions from their operations, versus 82 percent of project member companies that do.

A need to bridge the gap between intention and action

“The challenge for suppliers now lies in bridging this gap,” says the new report. “They must catch up to member companies in order to fulfill the member goals to reduce emissions.”

Companies in the supply chain that say they are committed to tackling climate change have a short-term outlook, as well. Fully 82 percent of suppliers that specified their emission reduction goals only go out to 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol agreement is set to expire. Project officials say this shows that the vast majority of companies are still waiting for governments to come up with new domestic and international carbon control regimes before making any longer-term commitments of their own.

“We are already seeing companies setting their own industry standards on climate change when it comes to suppliers, despite the lack of agreement on emissions cuts in the Copenhagen Accord,” said Frances Way, who heads the Carbon Disclosure Project’s supply chain program. “Companies such as Dell, Walmart and Johnson Controls are already including carbon criteria in general supplier evaluation reports or score cards.”

Fear of future regulation still seems to be the determining factor in cases where smaller supply chain companies are following their major corporate customers in paying attention to greenhouse gas output.

Fifty-eight percent of suppliers say they are worried about the changes to their business models that climate regulation would bring, with 38 percent pointing specifically to a possible growth in cap-and-trade systems around the world.

This article is reproduced with permission of E&E Publishing, LLC