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 Everyday low carbon dioxideSmall business suppliers should prepare to pay for emissions data required by large retailers.(FSB Magazine) -- Oakhurst Dairy spends a lot of money reducing the environmental impact of its operation, including paying a 10-cents-a-gallon premium to run its fleet of trucks on biodiesel and using solar panels to heat water to wash its milk tanks. So the fourth-generation family business readily agreed when Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) asked it to join a pilot program measuring the amount of carbon dioxide it releases for every case of milk it puts on store shelves. "We got involved because our biggest customer asked us," says chief operating officer William Bennett, 56. His was the only small business out of 40 participants asked to look one step back on the production chain. To do that, the Portland, Maine, dairy hired Pure Strategies, a consultant on green practices based in Gloucester, Mass. Pure Strategies co-founder Tim Greiner, 46, started by measuring the fuel consumed by Oakhurst's processing plant and trucks. Then he plugged in standard formulas for methane produced by each cow owned by the company's 92 supplier farms. He also interviewed the dairy's bottle supplier to calculate the energy used to make plastic jugs and caps. The result: 46.8 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions for every four-gallon case of milk delivered to Wal-Mart's shelves. Gathering such data isn't cheap: Greiner estimates that this basic level of sourcing would cost a small business $5,000 to $10,000 a product. And businesses had better get ready to pay: Shortly after Wal-Mart announced its plan in October, Cadbury Schweppes (CSG), Imperial Tobacco (ITY), Nestlé, Procter & Gamble (PG, Fortune 500), Tesco, and Unilever (UN) formed the Supply Chain Leadership Coalition and will be asking their vendors to provide emissions data. Plus, when its pilot ends later this year, Wal-Mart will begin comparing suppliers' emissions records and favoring those with better scores. Are you enraged that big vendors are requiring small suppliers to research their emissions? Do you think suppliers should be penalized for not providing this data? Join the discussion. Putting the zoom into electric cars How to shrink your electric bill An E-Z Pass for emissions tests How small business can slow global warming Soybeans in your gas tank |
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