Hundreds of firms that supply goods and services to the public sector can expect to receive formal requests for information about their carbon footprint and climate change strategy, after the Carbon Disclosure Project revealed it is working on a new pilot scheme with a number of government departments.

The group, which includes 385 institutional investors globally, promotes the adoption of carbon reporting standards among multi-national firms and their supply chains but is now looking to extend the initiative to include the public sector.

Under the pilot scheme, Defra, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Office of Government Commerce, Gloucestershire County Council, Essex County Council, London Borough of Islington, Leeds City Council, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, will contact their various suppliers with formal requests for information about their climate change strategy.

The requests - which will be modelled on similar requests being piloted by a group of multi-national firms working with the CDP - are expected to ask suppliers for information on their carbon footprint, the risks and opportunities they have identified as a result of climate change, their energy bills, and the executive in charge of climate change strategy.

CDP chief executive Paul Dickinson said that the long-term aim was to roll out the data requests across the public sector. "The public sector accounts for 16 per cent of EU GDP," he said. "It is a huge commercial power that can be harnessed to help promote carbon emission reductions."

He added that public sector procurement professionals would be encouraged to use the new information they gain throughout the scheme to make better informed decisions about those suppliers which are best prepared to respond to climate change and help cut emissions.

"The government wouldn't want to be wasting suppliers' time with these requests," he said. "The information will be used."