The Human Rights Campaign Foundation has expanded the scoring for its highly respected Corporate Equality Index (CEI)—the national benchmark of LGBT policies in the workplace, to include supplier diversity as one of its new criteria for evaluating companies.

The HRC Foundation announced late Tuesday that corporations will be scored and rewarded on additional criteria in the coming years, including demonstrated and ongoing supplier diversity programs inclusive of certified LGBT-owned businesses as suppliers.

"We applaud the HRC for making this very important decision. We have continually sought to highlight the vital role that buying back from—and investing in—the LGBT community plays in ensuring a more equitable and prosperous business community for all" read a statement from NGLCC co-founders Chance Mitchell and Justin Nelson after the new criteria was released.

The NGLCC noted that well over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies already have established supplier diversity programs that include ethnic minorities and women owned businesses. "This decision ensures that all companies that value LGBT people as a committed employee base or as a loyal customer market segment will expand their supplier diversity programs to include certified LGBT companies and it guarantees that corporate America's supply chains reflect the customer and employee base that these top companies have or that they are trying to attract," said the joint statement.

The new criteria raise the requirements that businesses must satisfy to achieve a 100 percent CEI rating. All the new criteria take effect in the CEI 2012 report, which will be released in September 2011.

"Employers from all industries and regions of the country responded with unprecedented speed to amend non-discrimination policies and expand access to employment benefits vital to healthy employees and their families," says HRC President Joe Solmonese. "Today, we focus that dialogue on the work that remains to be done to meet the goal of full equality, and on the practices that truly distinguish the best of the best."

Another significant change in the criteria relates to access to health insurance for transgender employees. The new criteria will require that all employees have access to at least one insurance plan that contains no exclusions for transgender-specific care and recognizes internationally-accepted medical standards of care.

Other changes to the Index include:

Higher standards for measuring a business's engagement with the broader LGBT community;

Public support for equal rights legislation;

Sustained sponsorship and philanthropy; and

Additional requirements for diversity training, resources and accountability.