Sustainability’s Next Chapter

As the EcoVadis SUSTAIN Summit in Paris came to a close this week, one message emerged clearly from conversations across the conference, the award submissions, and the jury deliberations.

Sustainable operations are no longer optional — they are a strategic imperative for navigating an increasingly volatile and uncertain world.

Serving as a juror for the Sustainable Procurement Leadership Awards for the fifth year has provided a vantage point few people have: reviewing sustainability programs from companies across industries and geographies and seeing firsthand how global organizations are evolving their operating models.

This year, one shift became unmistakably clear.

The future of sustainability leadership will not be defined by commitments.

It will be defined by resilience.

For more than a decade, sustainability leadership was measured by ambitious targets and public commitments. While those milestones helped accelerate progress, the operating environment facing companies today has fundamentally changed.

Global supply chains are navigating an era defined by geopolitical reshuffling, climate disruption, regulatory pressure, technological acceleration, and rising expectations around human rights and transparency.

Consider just a few signals shaping this new reality:

  • 80% of CEOs are actively redesigning their supply chains in response to geopolitical and economic shifts (PwC CEO Survey).

  • Climate-related disruptions could cost companies more than $120 billion annually by 2030 if risks remain unaddressed (CDP).

  • Yet only 4% of CEOs currently include nature-related risks in their core business discussions (World Economic Forum).

In this environment, leadership is no longer about declaring goals.

It is about building systems capable of operating through uncertainty.

Defining Resilience

Resilience has quickly become the new language of sustainability, but it is often used without a clear definition.

In the context of global supply chains, resilience means the ability to:

anticipate risk → mitigate exposure → adapt to disruption → respond intelligently in real time.

This requires a combination of strong supplier partnerships, operational discipline, and emerging technologies — all guided by human judgment where it matters most.

Resilience is not simply about preventing disruption.

It is about building organizations capable of navigating disruption while continuing to create value.

In other words, sustainability is evolving from a set of commitments into an operating model for managing risk, strengthening partnerships, and enabling long-term growth.

What the Jury Looked For

The Sustainable Procurement Leadership Awards bring together an international jury of experts to evaluate programs from companies around the world.

This year’s jury included Laura Taal-Groeneveld, Elsa Savourey, and Divya Kapasi Demato, CEO of GoodOps.

Across submissions spanning multiple industries and geographies, several themes consistently emerged among the strongest programs.

Leading companies are focusing their efforts in three critical areas:

Human Rights

Programs that move beyond compliance to address living wages, worker voice, and supplier capability building are emerging as powerful drivers of resilience.

Human rights is increasingly becoming an area of competitive advantage, as companies recognize that resilient supply chains depend on empowered and stable workforces.

Net-Zero Transformation

Decarbonization strategies are increasingly integrated directly into procurement decisions and supplier engagement models, reflecting the reality that the majority of corporate emissions sit within supply chains.

Regenerative Supply Chains

Organizations are beginning to rethink supply chains not simply as extractive systems, but as ecosystems capable of restoring natural capital and strengthening long-term resource security.

But what ultimately distinguished the strongest submissions was not the ambition of their commitments.

It was the evidence of action.

The companies that stood out were those demonstrating real operational progress — embedding sustainability directly into supplier relationships, governance systems, and business strategy.

Recognizing This Year’s Leaders

Two companies stood out this year for demonstrating how sustainability leadership translates into operational resilience.

Schneider Electric, recognized in the Mature Program category, illustrated the power of sustained commitment over time. Their work demonstrates how responsible procurement, when embedded into the fabric of an organization, can produce measurable results and long-term impact.

The Emerging Program winner, Siegwerk Druckfarben, impressed the jury with the speed and seriousness of their journey from vision to execution. Sustainability practices have already been embedded across their supply chain, supported by a strong culture of transparency and continuous improvement.

What particularly distinguished both organizations was their focus on human rights as a strategic priority.

From advancing living wage initiatives to strengthening worker voice and investing in supplier training and workshops, these companies are demonstrating that social impact is not separate from business performance — it is a foundation for long-term resilience.

Peeling Back the Curtain

Following the awards, Divya Kapasi Demato moderated a deep dive session with the winners titled:

“Peeling Back the Curtain: Inside the Leadership Playbook for Sustainable Procurement.”

What made the conversation particularly valuable was its honesty.

There were no buzzwords or polished talking points.

Instead, the discussion revealed the real decisions, trade-offs, and long-term strategies behind award-winning programs.

Several lessons emerged.

The Big Pivot

Many of the most important strategic decisions companies made were not framed as bold risks.

They were framed as common-sense business strategy.

Sustainability was integrated directly into operational decision-making rather than treated as a parallel initiative.

Suppliers as Partners

The strongest programs treat suppliers as partners in innovation and capability building.

Rather than imposing compliance requirements alone, these companies collaborate closely with suppliers — recognizing varying maturity levels and building phased roadmaps for progress.

The goal is not to penalize suppliers, but to bring them along on the journey.

Human Rights and Real Impact

Traditional audit models often fail to detect deeper systemic issues within supply chains.

Leading companies are therefore combining audit frameworks with long-term supplier partnerships that allow challenges to be addressed collaboratively when they arise.

This approach enables organizations to address root causes rather than simply shifting risk elsewhere.

A Broader Shift in Supply Chain Leadership

One of the most powerful moments during the conference came from reflections shared by Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever.

He emphasized that procurement and supply chain leaders have a unique opportunity to shape the future of global business.

For decades, procurement has largely been defined by cost efficiency and operational execution.

Today, it sits at the center of nearly every major global challenge — from geopolitical realignment and climate disruption to technological transformation and regulatory change.

Procurement leaders understand complex systems.

They maintain deep relationships with suppliers.

And they often see emerging risks before they materialize.

Which means they are uniquely positioned to drive innovation and transformation across global value chains.

The question now is simple:

Who is willing to step up and lead?

Technology and the Rise of the Autonomous Supply Chain

Another theme that surfaced repeatedly during SUSTAIN was the growing role of technology in enabling resilient supply chains.

Speakers from organizations including EcoVadis and Accenture described a future in which supply chains become increasingly autonomous, agentic, and augmented.

In this vision, companies will be able to continuously detect risk, predict disruptions, and resolve issues in real time — creating what many are beginning to call “self-healing supply chains.”

But technology alone is not the answer.

Resilient supply chains will require organizations to:

  • automate what should be automated

  • maintain human judgment for critical decisions

  • make trade-offs explicit at the moment decisions are made

  • redefine supplier relationships from compliance to co-creation

Ultimately, technology will scale the logic we give it.

Which means the systems we build must reflect a broader understanding of stakeholders — including the planet and future generations.

Imagining the Future

One idea echoed across multiple conversations at SUSTAIN.

If we want to build a different future, we must first be willing to imagine it.

Vision often comes before spreadsheets.

It requires leaders who are willing to think differently about how systems can work — and who are prepared to act even in the face of uncertainty.

Because leadership, ultimately, is defined by the willingness to move forward before all the answers are known.

Gratitude

Thank you to EcoVadis for convening this global community and for continuing to elevate the companies turning ambition into action.

Congratulations again to Schneider Electric and Siegwerk Druckfarben for demonstrating what leadership in sustainable procurement looks like in practice.

And thank you to the fellow jurors, speakers, and participants whose insights continue pushing this work forward.

The progress is real, and the work ahead is more important than ever.

Filed Under By GoodOps

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.

Filed Under By GoodOps