Beyond the Pledge: Practical Strategies for Supply Chain Decarbonization

With the support of the Erb Institute, I recently had the opportunity to volunteer at the Scope 3 Conference in Washington D.C., hosted by Innovation Forum. The conference focused on practical strategies to advance Scope 3 decarbonization, with an emphasis on the consumer goods and food & beverage sectors. Through the various sessions, I picked up several actionable strategies and insights to help drive progress and overcome sticky challenges when trying to decarbonize supply chains. 

Note: As Innovation Forum's conferences operate under the Chatham House Rule for non-attribution, the following information is anonymized.

Internal Coordination 

While many companies have set decarbonization and other sustainability-related goals, reaching internal alignment on the scale or scope of efforts, the prioritization of various goals, and the how of achieving those goals remains challenging. Here are some tips shared at the conference to overcome those challenges:

• Strategic framing: 

  • Climate change poses a huge risk to supply chains, and executives know this. Scenario and risk analyses provide a specific, long-term view on financial impact that can serve as a powerful lever. 

  • Anchor these risks back to the company’s revenue drivers of the business to get leadership buy-in.

  •  The easiest wins come from pushing strategies that advance market leadership and/or business growth.

• Prioritization & Focus:

  • While sustainability professionals understand that most climate strategies operate on a long-term time horizon, companies often make decisions in the short term. Keep this in mind when prioritizing areas of focus.

  • Through hot spot analyses, identify key high-emission materials and suppliers that have the influence and capability to implement decarbonization strategies.

• Data & Decision-Making

  • Many professionals lament challenges with data collection or completeness, but one expert suggested that data is being overemphasized. Their advice: “Let data be directionally good enough and then begin making decisions.” 

• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Integration

  • Procurement and Sustainability often work separately with few touchpoints to coordinate Scope 3 strategy. One strategy to overcome this challenge: Procurement teams can invite both the sustainability and sales representatives from their supplier companies, as well as their own internal sustainability expert, to joint meetings. This approach helps understand your company’s commitment to sustainability and encourages stronger collaboration with their own sustainability colleagues.

Supplier Engagement and Partnerships

A key challenge in supplier decarbonization is that power is distributed across multiple entities. Most consumer goods companies don't manufacture their own products, so decarbonization requires engaging suppliers who often lack the resources and expertise of their buyers. Additionally, many sustainability solutions demand systemic change that no single company can afford or manage alone, requiring cross-company collaboration within sectors. Strategies to address these challenges include: 

• Pre-Competitive Collaboration & Industry Coordination

  • Collaborating with other brands through pre-competitive partnerships makes it easier for suppliers, especially those with limited capacity, to participate in sustainability initiatives. 

  • Standardizing requests, minimizing surveys, and providing a single point of contact helps streamline communication and resource sharing. Industry trade associations can play a key coordinating role here. 

• Tiered Supplier Engagement Strategy

  • True traceability requires direct engagement with suppliers rather than relying on estimates or surveys, which often result in lower adoption and less useful data. Consider segmenting suppliers by their impact:

    • Tier 1 suppliers receive personalized, hands-on support and regular communication.

    • Tier 2 suppliers still contribute significantly to emissions but may be engaged through third parties and accessible resources.

    • Long-tail suppliers are harder to reach, so scalable tech platforms can empower and streamline their participation.

• Tools, Resources & Capacity Building

  • Educating suppliers about Scope 1-3 emissions is helpful but only a starting point. Bridging the gap between knowledge and action requires practical resources, financing, and collaborative projects that align the interests of companies and their suppliers. This can also help make the business case to their leadership.

• Incentives & Business Case Development

  • It’s effective to clearly signal that your company will prioritize business with suppliers who support your climate commitments, such as through embedding sustainability goals into contracts and discussing them on supplier calls. 

  • Incentives such as favorable payment terms or flexible compliance deadlines can encourage participation.

Regenerative Agriculture

Regenerative agriculture has emerged as a cornerstone sustainability strategy amongst food and beverage companies that are reckoning with the negative environmental impact of conventional industrial agriculture. Some key considerations for advancing regenerative agriculture practices in supply chains are: 

• Long-Term Partnerships & Risk Sharing

  • Building long-term relationships through multi-year contracts helps support farmers when asking them to make changes. Corporations should share the risks of these changes and offer clear incentives. 

• Financial Incentives & Economic Support

  • Supporting smallholder farmers requires flexible and creative incentives, such as in-kind payments to help reduce their up-front costs. 

  • With their thin margins, crop insurance prevents farmers from risking their livelihoods if sustainability initiatives negatively impact yields.

• Scaling Through Ecosystem Approaches

  • Scaling sustainable agriculture requires an ecosystem approach - instead of working directly with dozens of farms, collaborate with supply chain partners like processors. 

  • Strong partnerships with local governments, nonprofits, and agriculture extensions are key for implementation. For example, “train the trainer” programs and model farms help spread best practices through trusted messengers. 

  • Pre-competitive collaborations and farmer support networks, including local programs and research institutes, can help drive broad, impactful change.

Price - The Elephant in the Room

One attendee asked, "Even after we make the business case and find the most cost-effective sustainability solution, at some point, the price must be passed on to the consumer - what do you say to that?”he panelist's answer: Consumers are already paying for climate change through increased insurance, coffee, and other prices. Halloween candy rose 20-40% in 2025, due to climate-related cocoa declines. Climate inaction has real costs affecting every purchase across food, textiles, buildings, and more. We cannot avoid climate-driven price increases, but we can: 

• Reframe the conversation: The cost of inaction is already embedded in rising prices everywhere. 

• Use the EPA's carbon visualization tool (equivalency chart) to contextualize carbon reductions for business leaders (e.g., "this project saves 2,000 tons of CO2, equivalent to over 460 homes’ energy use per year”) 

• Focus on financial benefits: "Make money, save money, turn around and grow." Anchor sustainability strategy to the company’s long-term growth.  

• Get messaging out in a way that moves people - turn it into a competitive advantage through marketing or sales strategy. 

Whether customers will pay for sustainability doesn't necessarily impact sourcing or commercial strategy. When Halloween candy prices rose, some neighbors switched to handing out pretzel packs - showing that consumers have limits on their willingness to absorb costs. It’s our job to demonstrate that the cost of inaction is outweighed by the cost of action, through business risk, commercial strategy, or regulatory compliance.

Ultimately, we are still in the early phases of Scope 3 decarbonization. Professionals must continue refining strategies, sharing best practices, and supporting one another as we reroute behemoth industries towards a more sustainable future. 

The quote that stuck with me most after the conference was, “Sustainability comes down to individual people. It comes down to relationships and then what those people do because of those relationships.” Like all problems, it comes down to relationships. So I invite you to use these strategies to engage people inside and outside your company toward the shared goal of a more sustainable and just future together.