Companies with less reliable supplier carbon data expose themselves to greater and more costly carbon risks throughout their supply chain, according to the 2026 Carbon Action Report from EcoVadis and Kearney.
In fact, only 4% of companies use primary supplier data to calculate their Scope 3 footprint. Most either rely on industry averages or do not report on Scope 3 at all.
"Companies are making capital and sourcing decisions on carbon numbers they can't actually trust," says Pierre-François Thaler, co-founder and co-CEO at EcoVadis. "This is a real blind spot in how a company manages risk, and the ones addressing it now are using verified data to decide who they buy from before a disruption, a regulator, or a competitor forces the decision for them."
Key takeaways:
· EcoVadis calls this the Fragility Gap: the distance between how resilient companies believe their supply chains are and how exposed they actually remain when that data isn't verified.
● Only 7% of companies currently engage suppliers on carbon at all, but those with verified Scope 1&2 data are eight times more likely to do so. Companies that engage suppliers are also six times more likely to hit their science-based targets.
● Leaders in the network (~3% of companies) cut operational emissions up to seven times faster than the 58% of the network still at the lowest carbon maturity levels (-6.4% vs. 0.9–1.5%).
● Companies sharing verified Scope 1 and 2 emissions data (12% of reporters) average 31 buyer connections, nearly three times the 11 averaged by those with low-reliability data.
● Among those with science-based targets, companies with verified data stay on track 77% of the time versus 54% of those with less reliable data.
● The top 10% of emitting suppliers account for 95% of all emissions across the network and connect to an average of 72 buyers each, double the rest of the supplier base.
"This report shows exactly where companies fall short: not on ambition, but on the data behind it,” says Angela Hultberg, global head of sustainability at Kearney. “The businesses that invest in real data now will spend the next five years making better decisions than everyone is still guessing. The fastest results come from focusing on your highest-emitting suppliers first, backed by contractual requirements and real incentives, rather than trying to fix your entire supply chain at once.”
