World’s largest buyer to require suppliers’ GHG emissions disclosure

The US federal government is the world’s largest buyer of goods and services with an annual spend of more than $450 billion.

Last week, the US General Services Administration (GSA) announced that they will now require contractors to disclose and reduce their greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions.

This will affect a significant number of companies, including the current suppliers of goods and services as well as firms which want to win government contracts.

Annual public disclosure of GHG as well as targets for reducing emissions will become compulsory for large- and medium-sized contractors on the GSA’s Alliant2 government-wide IT contract list, according to documents published in the Federal Register.

40 per cent of the current Alliant2 contractors already disclose their GHG emissions.

The document says: “Public disclosure of GHG emissions and GHG reduction goals or targets has become standard practice in many industries, and companies are increasingly asking their own suppliers about their GHG management practices... More than 4,000 companies provided public disclosure through third-party organization CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) in 2015. Performing a GHG inventory provides insight into operations and opportunities for energy and operational savings that can result in both environmental and financial benefits.”

The White House had previously planned to require public disclosure of climate-related risks and actions from its suppliers, which inspired the GSA’s new initiative.

The US Navy also announced last April that it will require a GHG emission disclosure from its 100 largest suppliers, via CDP.

According to Dexter Dalvin, Head of Supply Chain at CDP, GSA’s new plan should reduce emissions as well as save supplier’s money.

He said: “We welcome GSA’s plans to require even more of its suppliers to disclose climate information... Proper tracking and transparency on this issue shows us what can be achieved: in 2015, 63 suppliers disclosed to CDP a combined saving $1 billion from their emissions reductions activities.”