HP has certainly been a Green Supply Chain leader on many fronts for several years. This week, it announced that it was publishing data on the emissions of its largest suppliers.

The data published by HP is aggregated across these top suppliers, not individually reported. The company says these tier 1 suppliers represent about 80% of its total purchased materials. Specifically, HP said, "the aggregated carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions associated with more than 80 percent of HP's first-tier manufacturing expenditures totaled approximately 3.5 million metric tons" in 2007.

HP also said it will use the data to "incorporate energy efficiency into how it manages its first-tier suppliers."

We all want a clean environment, but is this a good thing that HP is doing? I have mixed thoughts.

Since for 99+% of us, the raw 3.5 million number is meaningless from a real frame of reference, the main point is that it will serve as a baseline for reporting in future years. We won't understand what 3.5 million metric tons of emissions really means, but will sense that if it is 3.2 million next year or something that will be "better."

That said, I have some questions and comments, a couple of which I have sent just today to HP for clarification:

1. I assume the suppliers are self-reporting - using what calculation mechanisms I have no idea. Anyone who has looked at this knows that this is a key and very fuzzy topic. Yes, there are some evolving protocols, but I think still very loose and variable.

2. Not well recognized, it is probably in the interests of most suppliers (and maybe HP too) for them to actually over report emissions now - to make it easier to show progress later.

3. This appoach can lead to some odd results. For example, it may (not sure, depends on calculation details) incent tier 1 suppliers to outsource elements of their supply chain to also outsource emissions.

4. I think we have to be careful that we don't elevate emissions reduction to a goal in and of itself. There are trade-offs. To take things to an extreme, we could reduce a lot of energy use by removing factory automation and throwing labor at various tasks, but that probably isn't a good choice either.

So, as long as the emission metrics are used as one input to overall supply chain improvement, I think it is a fine thing to do - but there is some danger in elevating this type of thing too high.

I’d love your thoughts on this.