Honda is expanding its environmental purchasing guidelines to cover all its suppliers around the world, the company has announced.
The car maker said its revised Green Purchasing Guidelines cover all purchases worldwide, not simply suppliers of chemical substances in Japan, as was previously the case.
Honda said the change reflects the globalization of its purchasing practices.
The company has also added “environment" to the list of evaluation items for suppliers, alongside quality, cost, delivery and development.
The manufacturer’s old guidelines, written in 2001, called for managing the CO2 footprint of its production processes, managing the use of chemical substances, and introducing environmental management meeting the ISO14001 standard.
Now Honda has added to that list the improvement of product fuel efficiency and managing greenhouse gas emissions in all areas of corporate activities.
The call for an ISO 14001-based environmental management system has been replaced with a requirement for environmental management across all corporate activities.
"With the new guidelines, Honda will strive to better track and reduce the environmental footprint of Honda products throughout the supply chain beyond primary suppliers,” the company said in a statement.
It said it will begin rolling out the guidelines this month.
Last week Honda joined Toyota, Nissan and ten Japanese natural gas companies to announce plans to build 100 hydrogen filling stations in Japan by 2015, the Financial Times reports.
Honda was the first carmaker to put a fuel-cell car on the market, in 2008, but more recently has shifted its focus to electric and hybrid vehicles, the FT said.
Honda’s last North American environmental report said that the company’s North America Purchasing Division launched a supply chain sustainability initiative to reduce CO2. Two on-site parts consolidation centers — at the Marysville, Ohio, auto plant and Timmonsville, SC, all-terrain vehicle (ATV) plant — are estimated to reduce CO2 emissions from supplier parts shipments by nearly 1,300 metric tons annually.
Last October Honda retained its “Greenest Automaker” title for the fifth consecutive year in rankings from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), edging out Toyota and Hyundai, which tied for second place. The ranking evaluated cars’ contributions to smog and global warming.