Mobilizing Suppliers on Climate Change Action

Challenge

The consumer-packaged goods sector has been a leader in stepping up to curb climate change over the last decade, but when the Science Based Targets initiative began asking for supply chain greenhouse gas (GHG) targets, companies realized they needed to form new bonds with suppliers and departments like supply chain procurement to better understand the impact that global supply chains have on the health of the planet.

Solution

In 2019, Guidehouse convened major brands—including Mars, Incorporated, PepsiCo, and McCormick—for a roundtable where sustainability managers discussed how they could take action beyond their typical operational footprint activities.

After the roundtable, Guidehouse developed a consortium with Mars, McCormick, and PepsiCo to mentor and train suppliers in emissions reduction strategies.

The Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition (Supplier LoCT) mobilizes collective climate action by providing suppliers with resources, tools, and knowledge to support their own climate journeys.

Supplier LoCT has three primary components:

• An educational seminar series

• Supplier maturity scoring, with four levels of recognition

• A monthly check-in to drive dialogue for brands

Impact

Over 210 Mars, PepsiCo, and McCormick suppliers are participating in Supplier LoCT. With expertise based on Guidehouse’s 30+ years of sustainability consulting, the brands are influencing suppliers to take inventory of emissions, set science-based targets, and curb emissions at scale. In turn, supplier progress is accelerating the ability of the brands to deliver against their individual science-based targets to reduce GHG emissions in their full value chains.