Jan. 21, 2008 -- Eleven multinationals, including Hewlett-Packard, L'Oreal, and PepsiCo, are the latest to join the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration (SCLC), a corporate initiative to assess greenhouse gas emissions from global supply chains. They join Cadbury Schweppes, Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Tesco, Imperial Tobacco, and Unilever, which signed on last fall.

The project, organized by the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), aims to create a single standardized approach to reporting climate emissions. A standard reporting structure would benefit not only large corporations responsible for communicating total carbon footprint to stakeholders, but also their suppliers, who might otherwise receive from various customers separate requests for similar information, according to CDP.

Under the scheme, each SCLC member will require up to 50 suppliers to fill out a detailed information request, which includes questions on greenhouse gas emissions data, emissions reduction targets, and climate change strategy. A pilot report will be produced on the findings.

"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," says Paul Dickinson, CEO of CDP. "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."

CDP is currently inviting more companies to join SCLC for the second phase of the project, which will be rolled out in May 2008.