Source : Procurement Leaders

Australian retailer has begun putting pressure on its suppliers to mitigate supply chain cost increases from the pending national carbon tax.

Wesfarmers, one of Australia’s largest companies, which owns retailers Coles, Target, Bunnings and KMart, said it was working to identify the full operational cost of the Australian carbon tax.

Managing director Richard Goyder told local newspaper Business Spectator that, the company expected these calculations to be completed in the next three months: "We will try to give you as best an indication as we can in June of what the impact will be.”

The paper reported that Wesfarmers, and Coles in particular, were gearing up to tell suppliers that they would not accept cost increases from suppliers related to the carbon tax: "In relation to anything our view is that suppliers need to justify cost increases because we don’t want to pass any cost increases on to our customers when we don’t have to," he said.

"We’ll see what happens."

According to the report, Australian families will have to pay an extra $9.90 a week to pay for the carbon tax, which will be implemented on July 1.