ATLANTA, GA – February 26, 2024 – Sustainable Supply Partners announces the launch of Net Zero Pathfinder™, a first-of-its-kind sustainable category management solution that enables businesses to accelerate their path to a net-zero supply chain. The solution combines spend, product, emissions and third-party data to analyze how suppliers are performing against industry benchmarks based on sustainability KPIs.
Leveraging AI capabilities, Net Zero Pathfinder can integrate with existing carbon accounting software and enables supply chain managers to benchmark suppliers’ progress against emissions reduction goals, gain insights on sustainable sourcing strategies by category or an entire supply chain organization, and filter down to sustainable sourcing strategies that are either cost-neutral or even reduce cost.
“Supply chain organizations have been challenged to guide supplier and specification selection to reduce their scope 3 emissions,” said Sam Sibble, Partner and Co-Founder of Sustainable Supply Partners. “But existing supply chain sustainability tools lack information on how supplier & product changes can lower scope 3 footprint. Net Zero Pathfinder provides category managers with the relevant information they need to make progress against scope 3 emissions reduction goals.”
According to CDP, 40 percent of global emissions are influenced by purchasing decisions, which means that supply chain organizations will play a critical role in accelerating the global economy’s path to net zero. Net Zero Pathfinder provides category management teams with actionable strategies to accelerate the path to Net Zero in three ways:
Supplier Footprint Estimation - The solution can integrate with existing carbon accounting solutions or can take spend & product data to rapidly estimate scope 3 purchased goods CO2e footprint by category, business unit and geography.
Sustainable Supplier Benchmarking - Leveraging publicly available emissions data, category managers are able to make side-by-side comparisons of suppliers’ footprint & sustainability commitments using standardized KPIs such as SBTi commitments, emissions intensity (CO2e / $ Revenue), near-term emissions reduction targets and renewable energy usage. Instead of providing broad scoring on supplier policies and procedures, Net Zero Pathfinder evaluates critical KPIs that differentiate more sustainable suppliers & products.
Sustainable Sourcing Strategies - Using AI, the solution pulls information from over 500 publicly available ESG reports to harvest leading sustainability strategies by industry. Over 50 categories have been assessed to date across direct and indirect purchasing categories. The output is a concrete list of sustainable sourcing strategies by category, including RFP questions, that help category managers engage with suppliers to refine their supplier and product selection, as well as partner with suppliers to accelerate their sustainability efforts.
About Sustainable Supply Partners
Sustainable Supply Partners (SSP) develops real-world strategies to meet bold sustainability goals for clients. It was founded in 2023 by three previous Deloitte Consulting leaders who have more than 40 years of combined experience in sustainability and supply chain management. SSP helps businesses reimagine their supply chains to accelerate their path to a Net Zero supply chain, execute sustainable product design & sourcing projects, and implement circular product solutions.
