State of Supply Chain Sustainability 2022
INTRODUCTION
This is an essential read for anyone in supply chain today.
Supply chains worldwide are uniquely positioned to be an
engine to impact our society positively. The choice of who
we choose to do business with, where we do business, and
what and how we deliver is essentially in the supply chain's
control. Consumers and businesses alike need-and, in
fact, demand-that products we source and deliver meet
their environmental and social expectations. You will find
in the State of Supply Chain Sustainability 2022 a most
important, comprehensive global study that supports your
ability to benchmark your company and SCS actions.
-Mark Baxa, President and CEO, CSCMP
The annual State of Supply Chain Sustainability report is a co-
presentation of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and
the Council of Supply Management Professionals. This yearlong
research effort includes a globally administered survey, semi-
structured executive interviews, and a thorough review of the year's
news and media documents related to global sustainability. Each
year, the research team has collected and collated those disparate
data points into this report, which we hope offers its readers a
clear snapshot of the current state of supply chain sustainability
worldwide.
In 2019, the first year of data this report studied, we found
widespread interest in a broad spectrum of environmental and
social dimensions of sustainability among participating supply
chain professionals. We also found that roughly half of respondents
reported that they felt their firm was under pressure to improve
its sustainability efforts, a finding that has been consistently
replicated in subsequent installments of the State of Supply Chain
Sustainability report.¹ In 2020-the first year where we could
make year-over-year comparisons-we expected to find a lagging
or decreased focus on supply chain sustainability efforts due to
the Covid-19 pandemic. However, to our surprise, we found that
global supply chain sustainability (SCS) efforts remained as strong
as ever; a whopping 82% of respondents reported that their firms'
commitment to supply chain sustainability had remained constant
* See Figure 8 for a full listing of these supply chain sustainability dimensions.
orincreased from 2019, even in the face ofthe pandemic-especially
for larger firms. The notable changes we did observe had to do
with who was exerting this pressure on firms' SCS efforts and how
firms prioritized sustainability dimensions. From 2019 to 2020,
we saw the most growth among social sustainability dimensions
like employee welfare and safety; human rights protection; local
community impact; and supplier diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And as to who was exerting pressure on firms in these areas, the
biggest increase in 2020 came from investors and governmental
authorities.2
This year marks the third installment of the annual State of Supply
Chain Sustainability report. We are very pleased that the report
has collected data from a larger group and wider range of people
each year. And this year, we were able to offer the survey in Spanish
and Mandarin Chinese in addition to English, allowing for diverse,
robust responses from all corners of the world. While in prior years
we had collected data from respondents worldwide, these new
translations allowed us to reach more people from more regions
to enable us to conduct another layer of statistical analysis.
This large undertaking would not be possible without our
outstanding team of sponsors, students, and contributors (listed in
Appendix A). We hope that readers find our results both interesting,
and useful. If you do, there is a large team to thank.
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