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Part A. Why Resilience

A-3. The Opportunity for Change​

Supply chains and trade routes are in the limelight, creating an opening to align supply chain resilience with climate action.

Yet something crucial is being overlooked: these strategies only work around the problem. Truly solving it requires investing upfront in making logistics infrastructure, operations, and the workforce more resilient.

Climate policy frameworks and funding discussions are maturing, presenting a critical moment to embed supply chains, including transport and logistics, into climate resilience strategies. Pressure is mounting for integrating and balancing climate mitigation, adaptation, and finance, with strong pressure coming from the Global South.

  • In 2022, the UNFCCC Parties launched the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, setting 30 global targets for 2030 across six systems (including infrastructure) to support the Race to Resilience’s goal of improving resilience for 4 billion people.35, 36
  • At COP29, countries agreed on a new finance goal of $300 billion, covering mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage, which is a step forward, though the annual climate finance gap remains at USD 5.93 trillion.37
  • Notably, adaptation finance doubled between 2018 and 2022, underscoring a shift toward building resilience.38

Supply chain cooperation can become a powerful lever for closing the investment gap, accelerating climate adaptation, and supporting a just transition by aligning political priorities with economic opportunity. With development cooperation retreating, policymakers are urging private sector to embrace the opportunity.

Societal support for climate action is stronger than ever, giving political and business leaders a mandate to act.

  • Public demand for climate action is at an all-time high with 9 out of 10 people across 125 countries wanting stronger climate action.39 47% of surveyed global consumers buy sustainable products and 37% pay more for these.40 Notably, fewer individuals feel personally responsible to act compared to a few years back, as they look at governments and companies to take the lead.41

  • Experts across academia, business, government, the international community ranks climate risk and failure to adapt very highly, according to the WEF Global Risk Survey: when looking ten years ahead, the top 4 risks are all environment/climate related.42

  • Development agencies and funders are also shifting priorities, focusing more on climate adaptation, nature inclusion, human rights, and support for the Global South, complementing traditional mitigation and technology-driven ‘breakthrough’ agendas.

Business leaders are reframing supply chains as strategic, and ESG as resilience.

  • Companies increasingly recognize the direct link between business continuity and resilience to supply chain disruptions, and the need to act. After COVID, 93% of 60 surveyed global supply chain leaders planned to increase resilience (44% even at the expense of short-term savings).43 Out of 508 global CEOs last year, 78% intend to make supply chain changes in the next 3–5 years, citing disruptions mainly due to political uncertainty and trade wars as their top concern.44 Of 109 surveyed organizations, 63% seek to understand their supply chain’s exposure to weather-related events and natural disasters.45 The opportunity lies in leveraging the supply chain focus to also improve resilience to impact from climate change–transport and logistics included.

  • The business case for sustainability remains strong. Surveyed CEOs link climate action to higher profit margins and revenue growth.46 More than half of surveyed business leaders state that sustainability actions helped drive supply chain resiliency.47 Companies have to act to maintain access to resources - around 95% of surveyed businesses expect circularity to be important or extremely important three years from now.48 What has changed is that ESG (strategies focused on Environmental sustainability, Social responsibility, and Governance practices) and climate issues have become increasingly politicized. Many businesses now prefer to frame their efforts around “resilience” as a politically neutral approach that situates these actions within a broader context of corporate value chains and risk management.49

  • Requirements from regulators, investors and customers are accelerating this shift. Companies must meet increasingly stringent supply chain-related requirements on climate, nature, and human rights under frameworks like the EU CSRD (disclosure), EU CSDDD, German Supply Chain Act, EU Deforestation Regulation (due diligence), EU CBAM (carbon border tax), and IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards.50, 51, 52, 53, 54 Regulations may be weakened, but the pressure stays.

The technology and tools are rapidly evolving, making it possible to strengthen supply chain and logistics resilience in a more pro-active and collaborative way, while supporting climate goals.

  • Digital twins of global supply chains, combined with analytical tools and AI, help both shippers and logistics service providers (LSPs) increase supply chain visibility, improving resilience, efficiency, and decision making.

  • Multiple tool providers and platforms are available for companies and other supply chain users to tap into. For example, climate hazards can be connected to supplier locations and transport legs, allowing companies to identify high-risk nodes or links. Better data access and exchange would further enhance coordination and collaboration among different supply chain actors, fostering shared resilience.

  • Climate modelling also allows countries and companies to look ahead to 2030, 2050, and beyond, making it easier to integrate future climate impacts into policies, planning and investment decisions.