How good is your emissions reporting? GSA wants to know.

General Services Administration officials are seeking approval from the Office of Management and Budget to gather information from companies on their greenhouse gas emissions and how they measure those emissions, according to a notice in today’s Federal Register.

It's the next step in the agency's sustainability agenda.

GSA wants to determine the benefits and challenges if companies inventory and disclose emissions data in a registry.

GSA officials say they have found it feasible for companies to report their emissions data in a voluntary system.

By September 2011, GSA will have a strategy to offer companies incentives for cataloging and then disclosing their emissions data, officials have said. So the agency is launching a pilot program to ask questions and hold focus groups with the top 200 federal contractors that voluntarily participated in an annual emissions survey.  

Officials believe that gathering this information will also assist them in identifying the type of outreach, training and other incentives to encourage contractors to disclose their emissions data in the future. They are also looking for comments from the public on whether this information from companies is necessary and practical.

The government and the private sector are at the start of an evolutionary process toward detailed tracking of emissions, eventually down to the product level, the notice states.

Although the emissions report currently is voluntary, GSA wants more required reporting in the future.