50% STILL USING ESG SCORES TO INFORM THEIR SOURCING STRATEGY

Supply chain disruption emerged as top risk of concern among geopolitics-related incidents

Half of respondents in this week’s Airmic Big Question survey say their organisations are still using Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) scores and assessments to inform their sourcing and sustainability strategy, when asked what their organisations do to manage supply chain risks. This follows last week’s Airmic Big Question survey in which supply chain disruption emerged as the top risk of concern among a list of geopolitics-related incidents, as global turmoil returns with the imposition of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs around the world.

Julia Graham, CEO of Airmic, said: “With an escalating velocity in change and an increase in the complexity and connectivity between risks, we now discover that elaborate supply chains have significant fragilities that were exposed by the natural world as well as the policies and politics of countries.”

This week’s survey results come as the debate about whether ESG is “dead” continues. Early champions of ESG such as BlackRock have begun omitting mention of ESG in their reports and letters to shareholders, for political and other reasons.

Hoe-Yeong Loke, Head of Research at Airmic, said: “While the prevalence of ESG scores and assessments could be explained by reasons of regulatory compliance, their use in informing the organisation’s sourcing and sustainability strategy simply demonstrates good risk management in evaluating and monitoring your suppliers.”

This week’s Airmic survey results also offered insights into shifting trends in supply chain management among risk professionals.

Leigh-Anne Slade, Head of Media, Communications and Interest Groups, said: “Supply chain risk is one of those highly interconnected risks, exacerbated by the shift over the past few decades from a just-in-case sourcing strategy to a just-in-time one. Airmic members have been diversifying their supply chains as a baseline mitigation solution, but more are now looking harder into their supplier risk exposures and performing supplier segmentation analyses.”

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We will be sharing the results of the Airmic Big Question with the press weekly.

You can also find the results here.

Media contact: Leigh Anne Slade
Head of Media, Communications and Interest Groups, Airmic
Leigh-Anne.Slade@Airmic.com
07956 41 78 77