Sphera: How to Close the ESG Compliance Gap in Supply Chains

Following significant disruptions throughout 2025, organisations are turning their attention to supply chain preparedness for 2026.

Sphera's newly released 'Supply Chain Risk Report 2026' aims to equip global enterprises with insights needed to navigate upcoming challenges.

The report examines common assumptions about business risk factors and leadership responses, whilst exploring pathways for implementing meaningful organisational change.

Supply chain disruption defined much of 2025, with conflicts, trade disputes and severe weather events compounding existing pressures faced by global networks.

Business leaders are now focusing on minimising disruption's impact through forecasting, predictive analysis and scenario planning to build better preparedness.

Additionally, leaders recognise that efficiency alone cannot create robust supply chains – resilience has become the critical factor.

Consequently, supply chain executives are crafting business strategies centred on resilience, investigating supplier diversity, AI applications and transparency initiatives.

Sphera's risk report draws from its 2025 survey data, capturing a perception-based snapshot of how organisations evaluate their risk preparedness entering 2026.

The analysis incorporates four Censuswide surveys, gathering responses from 800 Chief Procurement Officers and Chief Supply Chain Officers across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Canada.

The findings reveal that whilst leaders demonstrate confidence in their capabilities, the outcomes they report suggest potential losses and disruption.

Governance scrutiny is intensifying, with boards and senior executives applying greater pressure to ensure supply chain risk decisions deliver strategic value.

"Supply chain decisions are now being questioned regularly by boards and CFOs, which means leaders need real proof behind their data not just confidence," says Sam Perry, Group Vice President, Supply Chain Risk Management at Sphera.

Perception versus preparedness

Sphera's Supply Chain Risk Survey Report uncovers a substantial gap between organisational perception and genuine business readiness, highlighting vulnerabilities in risk navigation.

Respondents demonstrate high confidence in supplier risk data completeness and quality, 98% express confidence, with 66% feeling very confident.

All respondents express confidence in their capability to identify supplier financial distress before escalation and 99% feel confident about the accuracy and completeness of supplier data used for ESG and compliance reporting.

Despite this confidence, a considerable disconnect exists between perception and results – 73% of respondents report experiencing financial or operational losses stemming from supply chain disruption.

When leaders discussed visibility achievement across their organisations, data revealed several key barriers:

• lack of accurate and current supply chain data (44.5%)
• lack of supplier cooperation and data sharing (34.8%)
• poor data quality and completeness (32.4%)
• fragmented tools
• limited internal capacity
• need to justify return on investment (ROI) for additional investment.

These challenges demonstrate that confidence levels do not necessarily translate into operational effectiveness.

The gap between self-assessment and actual performance suggests many organisations may be overestimating their preparedness.

The primary risk entering 2026 could be misalignment between capabilities and expectations.

When data quality remains low, coupled with inadequate visibility and delayed decision-making, organisations struggle to achieve anticipated goals.

Macro concerns versus supplier realities

Leaders globally identify macro forces as primary disruptive risks, including geopolitical tensions (35.5%), macroeconomic instability (24.5%), regulatory compliance (15.5%), supplier financial health (15.5%) and environmental or climate-related disruptions (8.5%).

This reflects 2025's trade market, which experienced disruption through trade restrictions, tariffs, export controls and volatility.

However, collected incident data points towards issues originating at supplier level rather than global markets.

Many of these shocks could be detected earlier provided foundations remain strong.

This encompasses ESG and compliance concerns alongside fragility within supplier networks.

The focus on macro-level threats may be causing organisations to overlook more immediate, manageable risks within their direct supplier relationships.

This misalignment between perceived and actual risk sources creates blind spots in risk management strategies.

Whilst supply chain leaders have begun adopting risk mitigation strategies, including supplier diversification (52.5%), regionalisation or near-shoring production (40%), increasing inventory buffers (55.5%) and implementing additional supply chain risk monitoring tools (53.5%), disruption continues occurring.

This persists because these strategies cannot succeed when applied to weak foundations.

When suppliers provide incomplete data whilst using fragmented systems, monitoring tools cannot deliver the accuracy organisations believe they possess.

Furthermore, whilst these measures may absorb shocks, they fail to address deeper issues such as non-compliance or compromised data integrity.

All sustainability, net zero and sustainable supply chain leaders should attend:

• Sustainability LIVE: The Net Zero Summit - QEII Centre, London, March 4-5
• Sustainability LIVE: The US Summit - Navy Pier, Chicago, April 21-22

Co-located with Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE, these events brings together CSOs, ESG leaders and senior decision-makers at a moment when sustainability, supply chains and commercial performance are increasingly interconnected.

Tickets can be booked online today for The Net Zero Summit and The US Summit. Group discounts available.

Building demonstrable resilience

Sphera identifies concrete changes supply chain leaders can implement to transition towards demonstrable readiness.

Visibility must become verifiable, continuously updated and auditable.

It cannot simply measure current crises but should constantly reflect supplier network status.

Supplier engagement requires elevation from optional activity to core infrastructure.

Building ESG reporting integrity and robust capabilities demands comprehensive and scalable cooperation alongside data sharing.

AI maturity should focus on foundational strength rather than merely faster alerts.

AI should conduct data analysis that identifies cross-category patterns and strengthens business foundations through ESG pressure examination.

Through targeted adjustments to current tactical applications, organisations could see genuine resilience improvements.

Rather than implementing methods hastily to demonstrate trend responsiveness, businesses should concentrate on application methodology, ensuring proper risk mitigation implementation.