News and Insights
Sustainable Supply Chains: The Hidden Frontier of Climate Leadership
October 20, 2025
During this year’s One Business World Webinar titled ‘Sustainable Supply Chains: The Hidden Frontier of Climate Leadership’, which I had the honor of moderating, I interviewed a range of distinguished leaders in the industry with decades of experience in creating, managing, and reviewing sustainable supply chains.
The panel featured Adam Garfunkel, the Chief Impact Officer at Junction, Jay Gaines, the Chief Marketing and Content Officer at Worldly, and Nico Nicholas, the CEO of Zeero Group. Together, we explored the key challenges of building sustainable supply chains, how businesses can achieve practical and measurable success, and what to expect at this year’s COP.
The challenges of creating a sustainable supply chain
Building truly sustainable supply chains remains a complex and uneven process. For example, the information companies have is often inconsistent and fragmented, with limited integration across their networks. From a reporting perspective, data quality and availability vary significantly, particularly for businesses that manage hundreds of suppliers across dozens of countries. This is complicated further by their indirect sourcing relationships that involves an agent or licensee – a third party who will know even less about the data that sits behind those sourcing or procurement processes, obscuring visibility of information and the processes involved.
This complex process raises key questions for the industry, such as how much information is actually shared across suppliers? Or, to what extent are procurement principles applied consistently throughout the sourcing process? Gaining accurate insights and reliable data at every level remains an ongoing challenge. Communicating this complexity to the public can also be difficult. For instance, even a large multinational company may have surprisingly limited influence over some of its core suppliers.
Standardization is another major challenge within the supply chain ecosystem – without it, the system struggles to function effectively. With suppliers operating across hundreds of sectors and regions worldwide, companies face a confusing array of certifications, assessments, and audits. These come from both their customers and the respective governments, creating an environment that can quickly become overwhelming.
One solution the industry has been slow to adopt is the use of shared incentives. Data sharing on both sides is essential – companies must determine how to manage and share information in ways that foster collaboration between suppliers, brands, and retailers. For example, a brand might offer longer-term contracts or preferred supplier status to partners who meet emissions-reduction or waste-diversion targets, creating a tangible reward for progress. When done effectively, this approach enables brands and retailers to make decisions and achieve goals that make sense for everybody. Such goals help suppliers improve efficiency, reduce waste, and uncover new business opportunities.
Emerging digital tools such as AI, blockchain, and carbon-accounting platforms are also transforming traceability and transparency. These technologies make it easier to track emissions across tiers of suppliers, validate data accuracy, and provide real-time visibility into environmental and social performance, turning the “hidden frontier” of supply chains into something more measurable and actionable.
Setting ambitious but realistic goals
To achieve meaningful success, businesses must be courageous and challenge suppliers to make decisions that are right for people and the planet – while keeping values balanced and expectations realistic. This end goal requires that reporting and strategy work hand in hand: through consistent information sharing, partners can develop a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and the broader landscape in which they sit. Deeper audits, in-country visits, and a continuous commitment to improving transparency enable all partners to work from a shared understanding, streamlining operations and helping ensure that goals are met.
The reality is that most companies are led by people who genuinely want to do good. While they may operate within systems that sometimes limit their ambitions, awareness of the challenges within their own supply chains empowers them to take meaningful action. By fostering transparency and collaboration across the supply chain, business leaders can turn their vision into reality – aligning their goals with both their personal and professional values.
This level of information sharing not only maximizes opportunities for growth and success but also ensures that businesses remain compliant with evolving regulations and requirements across the supply chain. Connecting these efforts to evolving ESG frameworks – such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Scope 3 disclosure requirements – further strengthens business readiness for what lies ahead, helping leaders integrate sustainability into financial and strategic planning.
By developing a deep understanding of their operations, business leaders can proactively anticipate changes and stay prepared for what lies ahead.
For example, the tourism industry has a growing opportunity to invest in renewable energy – such as sustainable aviation fuel – which is expected to become a regulatory requirement in the near future. By staying ahead of these developments, travel businesses can ensure they are ready to adapt, maintaining both compliance and competitive advantage.
Achieving lasting and meaningful progress in this area requires collective effort and shared responsibility. When everyone contributes – even in small ways, such as supporting investments in the company’s clean energy future – stakeholders across the spectrum, from local communities to governments, help to de-risk operations and drive the transition toward a more sustainable industry.
Looking ahead: What to expect at COP30
During the panel, I asked the panelists what they expect from COP30 and what they hope to see as we look toward November. They shared a desire for a more optimistic outlook at this year’s conference. While past discussions have often been clouded by pessimism, the panelists noted that – although challenges may intensify before improvement becomes tangible – the broader trajectory is moving in the right direction.
Since COP30 will take place in Brazil, it also offers an opportunity to spotlight Latin American supply chains – particularly in agriculture, mining, and manufacturing – which reflect both the urgency and the opportunity for sustainable sourcing in regions most exposed to environmental and social risks. Addressing deforestation, water usage, and labour practices in these industries could set a global precedent for aligning local economic development with climate responsibility.
In the short term, uncertainty may continue to create hesitation among corporate leaders. However, in the long term, there is real potential for transformative change. To seize this moment, business leaders must show greater courage and take decisive action that reflects the opportunities of this new era.
The panelists also emphasized the importance of genuine collaboration at COP30 – particularly between brands and their suppliers – to identify the realities on the ground and find practical ways to address them together. While such negotiations are rarely simple, they foster a deeper understanding of the shared landscape in which we all operate.
Through open dialogue, partnership, and a renewed sense of ambition, there is hope that COP30 will mark a turning point in a way that drives meaningful progress toward more sustainable, resilient, and responsible supply chains.
If COP30 can move from commitments to shared accountability mechanisms, we may finally see supply chains become a genuine lever for climate leadership.
POSTED BY: Terri Bloore
