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According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), supply chains often account for more than 75 percent of an organization’s GHG emissions, when taking into account their overall climate impacts. In its Corporate Climate Leadership Program, the Agency offers some tips on how to engage your supply chain to reduce GHG emissions.
Start Small
It is best to engage a small number of key suppliers at first. Focus on your suppliers that comprise 75 percent to 80 percent of your money spent and those who pose the greatest risk to your financial performance or brand reputation if they do not manage their emissions. This may include smaller suppliers, those that provide critical components, or those that represent other risk factors, such as energy-intensive operations.
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Keep It Simple
You should consider using GHG emissions questionnaires and databases to collect information from key suppliers. Keep the information requests simple and do not ask questions of your suppliers that you would have difficulty answering. Some organizations ask suppliers for quantitative data, while others focus first on qualitative questions as to whether the suppliers are measuring, reporting, and taking steps to reduce emissions.
Build Trust
Think about how you feel when you are asked for information about your facility’s operations. Your suppliers may be sensitive about how their information will be used, some fearing that sharing their GHG inventory data will provide insight into how operations are managed and potentially linked to production costs. Your suppliers may worry that you might use the information to request further cost reductions.
To help build trust, consider first sharing your own success stories about saving money or enhancing competitiveness, lessons learned, tools, and resources with suppliers to demonstrate realized and potential benefits. You can also consider collecting data through third-party programs that protect suppliers’ confidential business information.
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Provide Training
Suppliers often do not know at first how to measure and report their GHG emissions, and they fear that doing so will involve extensive resources. Training and capacity building for suppliers are critical components of a customer-supplier relationship built around the goal of managing GHG emissions. You could consider having supplier-focused meetings or forums that can be leveraged to include trainings on managing emissions. If resources permit, you can also create a standing team to provide technical assistance to suppliers.