Tariff uncertainty has prompted businesses to delay, scale back or abandon supply-chain sustainability strategies, according to 68% of respondents in a new MIT survey.
The 2026 State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report draws on responses from 1,810 professionals across 91 countries. MIT highlighted the findings on October 15.
The report examines how companies are managing environmental commitments alongside trade disruption, artificial intelligence and the practical work of cutting supply-chain emissions. Its sponsors include the C.H. Robinson Foundation, Breakthrough, and CO2 AI with Dassault Systèmes.
Commitment does not settle spending decisions
In MIT’s summary of the findings, 83% of respondents rated sustainability as important or very important to long-term business success. Yet responsibility for delivering those commitments was often limited.
Among companies with public sustainability goals, 51% had a team spanning multiple business functions and 33% had board-level oversight.
Respondents from firms with cross-functional teams were more likely to say sustainability frequently or always informed decisions: 57%, compared with 13% where responsibility sat within one function.
These are reported associations. They do not establish that creating a committee will, by itself, cut emissions or improve profits.
The business difficulty is familiar: purchasing, transport, operations and finance can each control decisions that affect the same project. A change of supplier may alter product cost, delivery requirements and environmental performance together.
Measure the whole supply chain
Supply-chain emissions extend beyond the fuel and electricity used at a company’s own premises. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 3 standard covers indirect emissions across upstream and downstream activities, including purchased goods and the treatment of products after sale.
The standard is designed to help a company examine its emissions over time. It does not make raw emissions totals a reliable league table between businesses with different sizes, structures or accounting methods.
That matters when assessing a supplier change. A lower number in one company’s report may reflect a different reporting boundary rather than a cleaner production process.
For a separate view of how expectations can influence business conditions before policies take effect, MBN’s coverage of tariff threats and emerging-market currencies examines exchange-rate research. It does not measure the operational decisions in the MIT survey.
The survey records professionals’ experiences and assessments, rather than independently audited changes in every respondent’s emissions. It cannot establish the experience of all businesses. Its practical value is in identifying where managers say plans are being interrupted, and where responsibility for acting on them remains unclear.
