EcoVadis Sustain 2026

🇫🇷 GoodOps in Paris: 5 Years on the Jury at EcoVadis SUSTAIN

This week, GoodOps is in Paris as our CEO, Divya Kapasi Demato, serves for the fifth consecutive year as a Jury Member for the Sustainable Procurement Leadership Awards at EcoVadis SUSTAIN.

Across five years of evaluating submissions spanning food and agriculture, apparel, consumer goods, manufacturing, and technology, one reality is clear:

Sustainable procurement is no longer differentiated by ambition alone.
It is differentiated by execution, integration, and measurable impact.

The sophistication of programs continues to rise — as does the complexity of the global operating environment.

Below are four insights shaping what leadership looks like in 2026 — and how GoodOps is helping clients stay ahead.

1️⃣ Complexity Is the New Baseline

Procurement leaders are navigating:

Persistent tariff and geopolitical volatility
Expanding regulatory requirements across Europe and California
Heightened anti-greenwashing enforcement
Ongoing Scope 3 data fragmentation

The organizations standing out are not reacting piecemeal. They are building integrated operating systems that align risk, compliance, climate, and commercial strategy into one cohesive framework.

Procurement is no longer a support function — it is a central pillar of enterprise resilience.

At GoodOps, we work with executive teams to embed sustainability and risk management into core procurement architecture, ensuring long-term competitiveness in a shifting regulatory and geopolitical landscape.

2️⃣ Innovative Technology Is the Strategic Lever

The strongest submissions this year demonstrate that innovative technology is deeply embedded into procurement decision-making.

Leading organizations are:

Mapping multi-tier supply chains with greater precision
Using advanced analytics and AI selectively to identify emerging risks
Prioritizing interventions based on real performance data
Converting compliance requirements into forward-looking strategy

The competitive edge is not in collecting more data — it is in activating the right data.

Technology, when paired with governance and cross-functional alignment, becomes a lever for resilience, cost efficiency, and smarter capital allocation.

3️⃣ Human Rights Is a Competitive Advantage

One of the most significant evolutions over the past five years is the elevation of human rights from compliance obligation to strategic priority.

The most advanced organizations are:

Moving beyond audits toward supplier capability-building and worker engagement
Embedding human rights risk assessments into sourcing decisions
Aligning due diligence with commercial incentives
Measuring real-world outcomes — not just policy adoption

In a world of mandatory due diligence, heightened consumer scrutiny, and investor pressure, companies that proactively integrate human rights into procurement gain measurable advantages:

Reduced disruption and legal exposure
Stronger, more stable supplier relationships
Increased brand trust
Long-term operational resilience

The leaders recognized this year show that investing beyond minimum compliance drives both impact and enterprise value.

For GoodOps, human rights is not a side pillar of ESG — it is integral to building durable, high-performing value chains.

4️⃣ Partnerships Define Performance

Award-winning programs consistently reflect a shift from transactional oversight to strategic collaboration.

They are:

Investing in supplier capability and long-term alignment
Co-developing decarbonization and resilience roadmaps
Participating in pre-competitive industry collaboration
Treating suppliers as innovation partners, not risk checkpoints

When procurement, sustainability, and finance align around shared objectives, supplier ecosystems become engines of competitive advantage.

Five Years of Perspective

Serving on the EcoVadis SUSTAIN jury provides a rare longitudinal view into how global enterprises are evolving.

The companies that consistently rise to the top:

Embed sustainability and human rights into procurement KPIs
Align CPO, CSO, and CFO agendas
Use technology to enhance clarity — not complexity
Treat resilience as core business strategy

Sustainable procurement is no longer a niche excellence category. It is an indicator of enterprise maturity and future readiness.

As complexity intensifies, the organizations that will lead are those building intelligent, resilient, and rights-respecting value chains — grounded in data, strengthened by partnerships, and designed for long-term performance.

GoodOps is proud to contribute to this global ecosystem and to continue shaping the future of resilient supply chains alongside the leaders redefining what procurement can achieve.

Filed Under By GoodOps

Supply Web

It has been over four months since the COVID-19 crisis has gripped our world. This exposed the fragility, inequities and lack of redundancies in our material supply chains. As a response, the world is moving through exponentially rapid change and social turmoil amplified by digitization. Organizations are rethinking, responding and reinventing everything to respond to the needs of their customers and employees.

Prior to the Great Disruption, materials flowed in what we thought was an efficient system of supply chains. Goods and services criss-crossed the planet while logistics managers and procurement specialists managed the risks and disruptions through the digital flow of information. The operating systems were built to meet the needs of customers to provide the most amount of goods at the lowest cost options. Supply chains connected companies through win-lose negotiations. Compromises ruled.

We thought it was working pretty well. Until it broke. When COVID the future came fast. Faster than any business was prepared for. The low cost had come at a price. Multi-year roadmaps for digital transformation, sustainability and global expansion came to a head. Nearly overnight, companies froze in place; whatever they had in that moment was all they had to weather an unprecedented storm. Most, if not all, faltered. Companies either found themselves paralyzed by the sudden drop in demand, or a dried up supply. There were no alternative playbooks or clear pivots. The waste built into the chain, previously only sometimes visible, became an anchor.

Everything broke. That is what chains under stress do—they break. They are only as strong as their weakest links.

The companies who are surviving, even thriving during this time, have supply webs, not supply chains. A web is the best way to future proof your previously linear chain. The digital world is a network, a web. Companies who never wish to face this crisis again will retire the concept of a supply chain, and instead adopt a material model that is resilient, a supply web.

Why A Web?

The world of arachnids is an inspiration. A spider creates her web by linking many threads together. The more threads linked, the stronger the web. Out of crickets and other bugs, at ambient temperatures, the crafty spider creates a silk, a complex composite material that is five times stronger, ounce to ounce, than steel, able, compared to Kevlar, to absorb five times the impact force without breaking. For the web to maintain its structural integrity under force, the material is also highly elastic, stretching up to 40% longer than rubber and bouncing back as good as new. The interconnected structure can withstand wind and the elements. Waste is unheard of. A web begins at the center – what is available locally and then moves beyond the center to acquire needed materials.

Future supply webs will rely on both the amount and strength of partners. This includes: farmers, suppliers, factories, manufacturers, shippers, packagers, retailers, fulfillment centers and more. A supply web allows a company to move in and out of situations dynamically, without sacrificing quality, efficiency or cost. A sustainable supply web does all that, and ensures protection and advancement of people and planet.

In a post-COVID world, no company alone can resurrect their industry. It will take many partners, even adversaries, to work together to find new meaning and market purpose. It will also require collaboration of supply partners, who are now only a fraction of what they once were. Previous competitors will need to band together to provide the capacity, quality and cost optimization needed to save their industries. All parties have to be equal, treated equally, all weathering the storm together. Future systems must be dynamic and have the ability to work across systems, partners and time zones, all in real time, meeting the expectations of the post-COVID consumer.

The Rise Of The Conscious Consumer

A recent Futerra study in the UK and US found “that nearly 80% [of consumers] are willing to make lifestyle changes to stop climate change as big as those they’ve made for coronavirus.” The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for operational excellence, as it has propelled the conscious consumer into the mainstream economy. There is no turning back for brands who have compartmentalized their ecosystem. No longer can marketing claims sit apart from production practices. Company accountability now encompasses the entire supply network – from the farms where raw materials originate to the consumer packaging used at point of sale.

Brands who are already working to address other complex consumer trends like personalization, omni-channel purchasing and technology enabled experiences—will now have to address their ‘purpose’ claims in an authentic and measurable way. Transparency will become the backbone of any brand story, and without a powerful supply web to support this, brands who fall short will be abandoned.

The Supply Web

A supply web is a network of partners, all intrinsically linked together. One can not survive without the other. The strength of each entity enriches the strength of the whole. For supply chains, this means building a democratic ecosystem centered on the viability of the group. It is initiated by a single entity and then expands out, locally at first, carefully building the foundation. As the core structure stabilizes, it expands. Each connector thoughtfully engages with the other, nimble enough to move and expand.

For companies, it is no different. As brands begin creating their products, they start a journey that will involve numerous other entities that are composed of people and natural resources. As each brand chooses their partners, they should first look locally, where they have the best ability to judge the quality of partner business practices. From there, product needs will dictate where the web expands. Throughout this process, it will be imperative to maintain the same principles and values to ensure all members of the web flow in unison, as the business itself will ebb and flow.

Circularity is a key component of the supply web. It is by nature meant to stay intact, producing no waste. The same goes for brands who are creating goods of the future. There is no room for excess materials or toxic chemicals, polluting natural systems or human bodies.

ReInventing Everything

ReInventing Everything is how we prepare for an uncertain future. Moving from supply chains to supply webs is a key element to creating a diverse, equitable, resilient and frankly much better company. This is the moment in time where the once impossible is now possible. We can help.

Thank you.