Carrefour group has joined the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration, a new programme set up by the Carbon Disclosure Project, a London-based independent NGO, to raise awareness among its own-brand suppliers of the effects of CO2 emissions and general climate change.

Carrefour joined the CDP's Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration programme in January 2008 as part of its sustainable development initiative and in keeping with its commitment to fight climate change.

Launched in October 2007, the programme includes world leaders from the industry, trade and service sectors such as Cadbury Schweppes, Dell, HP, Imperial Tobacco, L'Oréal, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Prudential, Reckitt Benckiser, Tesco and Unilever. The goal is to measure CO2 emissions in order to help control and reduce them.

Carrefour will send out a survey to nearly 2,000 own-brand suppliers to collect information on their greenhouse gas emissions and their strategies for dealing with climate change.

This initiative should provide Carrefour with a clear picture of greenhouse gas emissions for the whole of its supply chain, raise awareness among its own-brand suppliers and, in time, reduce emissions linked to its own-brand products.

Carrefour has been working with CDP since 2003 and completes its survey each year. This London-based non-profit association is backed by institutional investors such as Merril Lynch, Allianz, Axa and organizations such as ADEME (French Agency for Environment and Energy Management). Each year, CDP gathers information from major listed companies on their climate change management and collects greenhouse gas emission data. More than 3,000 companies now complete this survey, making CDP a world reference when it comes to methodology on these issues.

By backing this initiative, institutional investors have initially raised awareness among major companies in the industry, trade and service sectors. Now, with the Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration programme, these companies are in turn raising awareness among their own suppliers about the issue of global warming.