A MIT survey drawing on responses from 68 percent of participants found that unpredictability around tariff policy has led companies to put off, pare down, or walk away from sustainability-focused efforts within their supply chains. Compiled from input gathered across 91 countries, the 2026 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report rests on survey data collected from 1,810 practitioners in the field.
A statement from MIT dated 15 October brought those findings to wider attention. Shifting trade patterns, the spread of AI technologies, and the practical work of cutting carbon footprints across supply chains together set the context within which the report examines how companies are managing their sustainability commitments.
Among its financial backers stands the C.H. Robinson Foundation, with Breakthrough, CO2 AI, and Dassault Systèmes listed among the partner organisations.
When MIT compiled the survey data, four out of every five respondents — 83 percent in total — placed sustainability among the factors they viewed as either important or very important to a company's long-term viability. Accountability for seeing those pledges through, however, tended to fall through the gaps. Of the organisations that had publicly stated environmental and social targets, just over half operated cross-functional teams dedicated to those goals, while roughly one in three had brought accountability for them to board level.
Among survey participants whose organisations used cross-functional teams, 57 percent reported that sustainability shaped decisions frequently or at all times — a rate that fell to just 13 percent at companies where that accountability was concentrated in a single department.
The connections noted in the report stem from reported sources rather than confirmed findings. No evidence is presented that forming a committee would, on its own, reduce emissions or strengthen financial returns. Four departments — purchasing, transport, operations, and finance — each hold authority over decisions tied to the same project, a tension that organisations across industries routinely navigate.
Switching vendors can simultaneously reshape pricing, logistical requirements, and how well a product holds up against environmental benchmarks. Greenhouse gas accounting for a company's value chain reaches well past the energy consumed within its own walls and facilities.
Under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol's Scope 3 standard, emissions accountability stretches beyond a company's own operations to take in both the supply chain feeding into production and whatever happens to a product once it leaves the factory gate — including how purchased materials were made and how goods are handled after customers receive them.
Designed to help organisations log their own emissions across multiple reporting periods, the tool lets those same entities track how their numbers evolve from one cycle to the next. Comparing emissions totals across organisations of varying scale, structure, or accounting convention does not yield a dependable ranking. When reviewing a potential vendor switch, this distinction carries real weight.
Variations in how organisations draw the boundaries of their reported operations can account for emissions figures that appear lower on paper, independently of how clean the underlying production actually is. Respondents' own accounts and professional judgements form the basis of the data, with no independent verification of each participant's actual emissions output.
No single data point can capture the full range of business experiences. The tool's identified utility lies in pinpointing the spots managers flag as bottlenecks in execution, along with the areas where no one has been assigned clear ownership of next steps.
