Against today’s ultra-fluid market backdrop, companies are now under increasing pressure to design and implement new strategies that can help them build resilience across their entire supply chain. So how can we create more resilient, adaptable global value chains that can support the transition to net zero, rather than actively holding them back?

Building resilient supply chains that can adapt rapidly to external shocks

Over the short to medium term, we need to mitigate the impact of disruptions to global value chains resulting from climate change and other disruptions such as supply and price shocks, evolving regulations, and shifting consumer expectations. Over the longer-term horizon, we also need to address the root cause of climate change by ensuring net-zero global value chains through the reduction of transport and production emissions. As they tackle these challenges, manufacturers need to consider three key themes.

First, building sustainability and resilience into value chains will play a vital role in helping us achieve a net-zero economy, but this drive needs to be embedded—and incentivized—across manufacturing organizations. In some cases, this may mean restricting supply and demand management to regional—rather than global—supply chains; in others, it might mean devolved and decentralized decision-making to manage the disruption that will inevitably come.