The World Resources Institute (WRI) is stepping up its work on greening the supply chains of companies both big and small, thanks to a $420,000 grant from Walmart.

WRI's Green Supply Chain Initiative will develop and deploy a new set of accounting tools to measure the greenhouse gas (GHG) impacts of a company's supply chain and of the products that are sold to customers. The project also involves creating a web tool that will bring clarity to the various environmental certifications given to products. "Measuring greenhouse gas emissions is the first step to managing them," says Rand Waddoups, senior director of sustainability for Walmart. "We think WRI can play an invaluable role in helping others understand the environmental and business benefit of collecting emissions information across the entire supply chain."

"The initiative opens up tremendous access and opportunity for companies and other stakeholders to participate in the drafting and piloting of the new product and supply chain accounting tools, which are based on the success of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard " says Pankaj Bhatia director of GHG Protocol Initiative at WRI. The GHG Protocol is an international accounting standard used by businesses to identify, calculate and report their own emissions. It was developed by the WRI and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 1998.

Bhatia added, "These new standards will provide a framework that companies can use to evaluate a supplier's performance, identify where emissions could be reduced along the supply chain or product life cycle and track the progress of GHG-reduction investments."

Support from Walmart also will go toward developing a "Green Standards Guide" to help companies navigate through the "green" claims of different environmental certifications or labels. And it will enable WRI to improve the environmental performance of suppliers in China by working with the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environment Affairs.

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