Sustainability data is a foundation for supply chain resilience and drives better business outcomes.
An entire production line grinds to a halt after a wildfire. Unprecedented drought followed by heavy rainfall creates a mudslide that stalls railway connections to move existing product. Elsewhere, a shipment of coffee is rejected by a major buyer who cannot verify that it is deforestation-free, and thousands of vehicles are denied entry into a country over suspected use of forced labor.
The common thread across these supply chain disruptions? A lack of trusted, actionable sustainability data.
From a shifting geopolitical landscape to destructive weather events and increasing regulatory pressure—today’s global supply chains are facing a perfect storm of challenges and disruption. Amid this turbulence, traceable and actionable supply chain data has become a necessary foundation for supply chain resilience. Whether it’s the inability to foresee physical climate risks, or the lack of trusted data to meet regulatory and stakeholder demands, these scenarios are a new reality for businesses. Good data management is no longer simply a compliance necessity but a strategic asset for supply chain risk management, operational efficiency and value creation.
As organizations invest in the data needed to navigate and manage the current supply chain environment, it is critical to enable detailed environmental data (e.g. physical climate risks, carbon emissions, water stress, packaging content), social data (e.g. modern slavery risks, wage data, community impact assessments), and product traceability to build effective, resilient, and agile supply chains. As part of building those supply chains, trust and strengthening relationships across the value chain are key.
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Global supply chains can span thousands of suppliers, multiple tiers, and diverse geographies, making it difficult to see where materials come from, who is producing them, and under what conditions.
Without accurate, standardized and actionable sustainability data from the supply chain, companies risk operating blind to the potential risks and opportunities that fall outside of their own operations, hindering effective decision-making across the organization. While corporate leaders remain strongly committed to their sustainability goals and increasingly confident in meeting them, supply chain complexity remains a barrier. KPMG’s 2025 Global CEO Outlook survey found that 61% of CEOs surveyed say they’re on track to hit their 2030 net zero targets, but 25% cite the complexity of decarbonizing supply chains as the biggest hurdle to overcome in reaching these goals.1
Supply chain activities often represent both significant value and outsized impacts for business; in 2023 disclosures, for example, companies reported that their supply chain (Scope 3) emissions averaged 26 times that of direct operational emissions (Scopes 1 and 2), underscoring how sizable risk and impacts for businesses often fall outside of the scope of their own four-walls.2 Meanwhile, companies actively managing supply chain emissions are reportedly saving billions of US dollars in costs.3
And, without supply chain data that enables visibility and traceability, leaders will be unable to identify and limit risk exposure. Many businesses leaders are limited to a single step up or down the value chain, but robust traceability—the ability to track products, materials and inputs through the supply chain all the way to their origin—goes much further. It means maintaining a granular, unbroken digital record of a product’s journey from origin to final destination, often down to the specific batch or item. Crucially, it also involves the ability to verify the data in that record against trusted, independent sources, such as compliance certifications or even satellite imagery. Without this deeper, verifiable insight, leaders will be unable to respond to disruptions effectively, transparently validate ESG and sustainability claims, adhere to mandatory due diligence obligations, or successfully capture incentives.
For many sectors, product traceability is already becoming a compliance imperative, as jurisdictions around the world increasingly introduce regulations that mandate upstream visibility. In the European Union, for example, the Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) will require geolocation coordinates to the plot of land where covered commodities were produced or harvested. In the United States, as of October 2025, authorities have detained over US$3.7 billion in shipment value under its Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which establishes a presumption that any products made in part or in whole in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or by certain entities, are restricted from entry under the country’s forced labor import ban—making chain of custody data and origin information critical data points for companies importing into the US.4
Beyond compliance obligations, organizations can harness this data as a strategic asset to build agility, resilience, and continuity in the supply chain. By capturing reliable sustainability data in the supply chain—such as emissions and labor risk hotspots, operations in water stressed regions, or dependencies on infrastructure vulnerable to climate-related disasters—companies can identify vulnerabilities before they escalate into crises. And traceable, data-rich supply chains are faster to predict, adapt, reroute or diversify when disruptions do occur.
Gathering sustainability data from the supply chain is a crucial starting point—but when combined with operational, financial and procurement data, it becomes a powerful tool for business leaders.
Sustainability data in the supply chain is often siloed and fragmented. For a holistic view, it must be integrated with traditional supply chain data. Consider the real-world complexity: Sustainability information from a supplier audit might need to connect with procurement platforms like Coupa, sync with logistics planning, and be cross-referenced with real-time customs data—all while flowing back to a core ERP system. Only this level of integration can effectively manage today’s supply chain risks and capture opportunities.
The value of this integration becomes clear when you see how sustainability data can be directly linked to core supply chain functions, such as:
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This integration of supply chain data into unified data ecosystems enables real-time visibility and smarter, faster, more proactive decision-making. Leading companies are able to harness sustainability and traceability data in the supply chain for continuous improvement and, at the same time, further fuel their transparency and reporting needs.
Emerging agentic AI capabilities can offer a path to operationalize this unified data ecosystem at scale, and to do so cost-effectively. Agentic AI presents a practical way to accelerate supply chain sustainability data maturity, even for organizations with limited resources or legacy technology.
The need for businesses to take action on their supply chain data is clear. Emerging regulations are increasing the urgency for traceability, geopolitics are shifting the trade landscape and traditional sourcing hubs, and stakeholders are demanding transparent, credible data to back companies’ sustainability claims.
To build alignment internally, business leaders are framing supply chain sustainability data as strategic infrastructure, essential for future resilience, compliance and competitiveness, and emphasizing its critical role in:
Risk mitigation: avoiding penalties and fines, damages to brand equity, and operational shocks
Performance and cost efficiency: identifying waste and cost savings, enabling circularity and responsible sourcing, and strengthening supplier relationships
Investor confidence: aligning with growing expectations for transparent, data-driven disclosures
Value creation: building supply chain stability and resilience, enabling forward-looking innovation, and enhancing access to sustainable capital and focusing on impacts across the value chain to enable value creation
Companies looking for a starting line can take a pragmatic approach to assess their current needs, start small by prioritizing and testing solutions, and build a business case to scale across the enterprise—beginning with concrete, focused actions:
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Map your top suppliers and identify the biggest data sources, gaps, and opportunities.
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Explore other sources of internal data, including product data from customs and trade teams, and regulatory requirements from legal and compliance teams.
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Test integrated dashboards, combining existing procurement, operational, and sustainability data to uncover patterns and insights.
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Pilot traceability tools in one or more high-risk categories and refine processes to scale across enterprise data systems.
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Set simple, measurable KPIs to track supply chain metrics.
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Assign clear ownership at the executive level and communicate progress regularly to make it a leadership priority.
While a lack of trusted supply chain sustainability data leaves companies vulnerable to risk and disruption, harnessing it effectively will help leaders build the resilient, compliant, and competitive supply chains fit for the future.
1 https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/value-creation/global-ceo-outlook-survey.html
3 https://www.cdp.net/en/press-releases/cdp-report-reveals-untapped-business-gains-of-usd165-billion
4 https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/trade/uyghur-forced-labor-prevention-act-statistics
