What if brands planned their sustainability goals with their suppliers? It’s not a revolutionary idea, but it might as well be, given how critical suppliers are in making these ambitions a reality—and how little they are heard in the process.
Approximately 90 percent of corporate supply chain sustainability goals are set without any meaningful collaboration with the suppliers, according to a 2025 study from the World Resources Institute. These goals, WRI said, are “designed to push or pull direct suppliers” to comply.
“In a lot of cases, facilities are so desperate and dependent, they’re going to do everything to meet [the brand’s goal] whether it makes sense or not,” Jimmy Summers, chief sustainability officer at Elevate Textiles, a leading global manufacturer of yarns, fabrics, and specialty fibers, told Sourcing Journal. “Sometimes, to the detriment of the people.”
There is pressure on all fronts, but not everyone bears the same weight in terms of responsibility and consequence. Out of over a thousand companies that had set goals to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, which together accounted for five percent of global emissions, 40 percent of them either missed their targets or just stopped reporting on them without any significant consequence whatsoever, according to a study published last year on the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
It was a sharp contrast. The study noted how initial announcements of the 2020 emission targets were warmly received by the public, and when they failed to reach their goals, the researchers said they did “not observe significant market reaction, changes in media sentiment, environmental scores and environment-related shareholder proposals.”
Meanwhile, a 2025 global survey by Bain & Company found that 49 percent of respondents plan to stop working with suppliers that do not meet their sustainability criteria in the next three years.
It’s an imbalance that favors brands at the expense of suppliers. Summers said brands often hire consulting companies to craft these sustainability solutions, which, despite being well-intentioned, are mismatched with the realities faced by manufacturers.
Facilities then receive the short end of the stick. Not only do they have to keep producing more while keeping costs low, they often also have to invest to upgrade equipment and processes in a way that satisfies the brand’s sustainability goals, without any assurance of any long-term commitment from the brand.
“What they’re not getting is that reality check,” Summers said. “It’s missing this ground truthing—this contextual piece of having suppliers at the table when you’re developing the program—and that’s the difference,” Summers said.
It’s a universal problem that may require a systematic solution. Summers suggested a new framework that would essentially include suppliers in the conversation and recognize a long-term commitment on the part of brands to keep doing business with the manufacturers that have made these changes for them.
There is a lot at stake here, especially since supply chains account for up to 70 percent of a company’s carbon impact.
“To know that this customer is going to stay with us as long as we live up to our side [of the agreement]—that’s huge. We can’t quantify it, but there’s a payback there because we know that we’re going to have business and that will unlock further decarbonization,” Summers said.
