24 May 2010 | Andrea Klettner

Firms introducing sustainability criteria to assess suppliers are being urged to use a standardised method.

Following the global adoption of supplier scorecards for sustainability by consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble (P&G) earlier this month, Stephen Easton, principal at consultancy AT Kearney, said that suppliers could become overwhelmed by these processes as they get more popular.

He said: “Lots of companies, including government departments, are doing it already and procurement departments are translating top-level risk awareness to measure environmental performance and selecting suppliers partly on this basis.

“But if companies keep coming up with different scorecards rather than using standardised ones such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, it could present a challenge to suppliers.”

The P&G scorecard measures suppliers according to protocols from the World Resources Institute, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the Carbon Disclosure Project.

A spokesman said: “Suppliers will have a full year to prepare to report their data before the rating can adversely impact their supplier rating with P&G.” The company hopes to encourage the sharing of ideas to deliver sustainable products and services.

Some UK Government departments, on the other hand, use a programme called Caeser to evaluate the sustainability of suppliers.

Easton said: “The more purchasers align with each other to create a common scorecard, the easier it will make life for supply chains.”