Public companies in the UK are to become the first in the world forced to publish full details of the greenhouse gasses they produce, under plans to be announced by the government.

About 1,800 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, including some of the biggest corporate names in the world such as BP, Tesco and Tate & Lyle, will have to publish their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses blamed for climate change from April next year.

Other large companies could be asked to follow suit when the policy is reviewed in 2015, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, is expected to announce at the opening of the Rio+20 conference on sustainability in Brazil.

Writing in the Guardian, Clegg says the move is part of a drive to encourage companies to measure and so begin to manage their impact on the environment in a bid to improve their performance and reduce their stress on the natural world. Officials have calculated that the move will save the equivalent of 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2021.