The University’s NorthStar Initiative for Sustainable Enterprise (NiSE) has teamed up with CDP (formally the Carbon Disclosure Project) to increase the number of carbon emission reduction activities undertaken by global suppliers. An average of 80% of a company’s carbon emissions rest with their suppliers. These supplier companies have increasingly been reporting their carbon emissions, with over 2,800 companies reporting to CDP in 2013. However, over that same time, the number of supplier actions taken to mitigate these carbon emissions has remained low, well below the number of activities of these suppliers’ customer companies (e.g. retailers and end product manufacturers).

In response, CDP is testing a new pilot program, the Action Exchange (AEX), with six large customers; Bank of America, L’Oreal, PepsiCo, Philips, Vodafone and Walmart, and over 100 of their suppliers. AEX  is “designed to equip companies with the intelligence and solutions that will help them take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and realize financial savings”. NiSE is the analytics partner for this pilot program. Using CDP’s massive multiyear dataset on corporate carbon emissions, NiSE is providing data driven recommendations on supplier preparedness to enact carbon reductions, reduction opportunities and program success reducing supply chain emissions.

More information about AEX can be found in the CDP Supply Chain Report 2013-14.