Corrected spelling of John Paterson’s last name.



I.B.M. said on Wednesday that it will require its 28,000 suppliers in more than 90 countries to install management systems to gather data on their energy use, greenhouse gas emissions and waste and recycling.

Those companies in turn must ask their subcontractors to do the same if their products or services end up as a significant part of I.B.M.’s $40 billion global supply chain. The suppliers must also set environmental goals and make public their progress in meeting those objectives.

“We will be amongst the first, if not the first, with these broad-based markers on our supply base and we’re going to have to spend an appropriate amount of time and money to help our suppliers do what we’re asking them to do,” John Paterson, vice president for I.B.M.’s global supply and chief procurement officer, said in a telephone interview from Hong Kong.

“It’s clear that there’s real financial benefits to be had for procurers across the world to get innovative with their suppliers,” Mr. Paterson added. “In the long term, as the Earth’s resources get consumed, prices are going to go up. We’ve already seen large price increases and problems with water.”

The initiative follows Wal-Mart’s announcement in February that it would require its suppliers to eliminate 20 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the life cycle of the products it sells.

I.B.M., one of the world’s largest technology companies, is not setting numerical goals for its suppliers to achieve. Rather, the goal is to institutionalize data-gathering systems that will collect information on a variety of measures of environmental performance, according to Wayne Balta, the company’s vice president for corporate environmental affairs and product safety.

“Our overall interest is to systemize environmental management and sustainability across our global supply chain so it helps our suppliers build their own capacity in a way that’s not only good for the environment but their business,” Mr. Balta said. “It’s about creating a system that works regardless of who is in leadership and what’s in green vogue.”

Mr. Paterson acknowledged the biggest challenge will be working with suppliers in regions of the world where sustainability is not as big an issue as it is in the United States and Europe. But he pointed to a recent success in China, where he said I.B.M. helped one of its suppliers, a shipping company, redesign its own supply chain to reduce its carbon footprint by 15 percent.

I.B.M. said it spends 36 percent of its supply chain budget on suppliers in North America, while a third goes to companies in emerging markets like Brazil, China and India.

Mr. Paterson and Mr. Balta said I.B.M. had just begun notifying suppliers of the directive. Primary responsibility for working with suppliers to implement the initiative will fall to I.B.M. buyers and procurement engineers.

While a deadline had not been set, Mr. Paterson said he would like suppliers to be in compliance by early 2011.

And those that fail to get with the system?

“Ultimately, if a supplier cannot be compliant with requirements on the environment and sustainability, we’ll stop doing business with them,” he said.