Sustainability

The 2026 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report draws on responses from 1,810 professionals across 91 countries. MIT highlighted the findings on October 15. The report looks at how businesses are balancing environmental commitments with trade disruptions, artificial intelligence and the practical challenges of reducing supply chain emissions. Its sponsors include the C.H. Robinson Foundation, Breakthrough, and CO2 AI with Dassault Systèmes. Sustainability Commitments Do Not Always Translate Into Spending According to MIT’s summary of the findings, 83% of respondents considered sustainability important or very important to long-term business success. However, responsibility for turning these commitments into action was not always shared across the organisation. Among companies with publicly stated sustainability goals, 51% had teams representing multiple business functions, while 33% had board-level oversight. Respondents from companies with cross-functional teams were more likely to report that sustainability frequently or always influenced business decisions. This was the case for 57% of respondents in organisations with cross-functional teams, compared with 13% where responsibility rested with a single function. These findings show an association rather than proof of cause and effect. Establishing a committee alone does not guarantee lower emissions or better financial performance. The challenge is familiar to supply chain managers: procurement, transportation, operations and finance can all influence the same project. Changing a supplier, for example, can affect purchasing costs, delivery schedules and environmental performance at the same time.