Month: September 2026

AMSTERDAM and HONG KONG and OAKLAND, Calif., September 24, 2026 /3BL/ – Cascale, the global nonprofit alliance uniting more than 300 members across the consumer goods industry, released The New Trade Landscape: What Global Trade Fragmentation Means for Consumer Goods Supply Chains, a new policy deep dive examining how geopolitical shifts, protectionist trade policies, climate disruption, and evolving regulatory requirements are reshaping global supply chains. The report’s themes were explored with senior industry leaders at a dedicated session, “Resilient and Responsible: Supply Chains in a New Trade Landscape.” on September 16 at the Cascale 2026 Annual Meeting in Athens.

“In a more fragmented global trade environment, the instinct is to treat sustainability as something you can afford later. The opposite is true,” said Ying McGuire, chief executive officer at Cascale. “The visibility and data that make a supply chain sustainable are the same capabilities that make it resilient — and in this environment, that’s what will separate the companies that adapt from the ones that don’t.”

Key Takeaways

• Global supply chains are shifting from highly optimized models toward resilient efficiency, balancing cost and speed with diversification, flexibility, redundancy, and visibility.
• Trade policy is accelerating multi-country sourcing, regionalization, nearshoring, and dual sourcing, while adding cost and complexity.
• Sustainability and resilience are interconnected, making standardized measurement, traceability, supplier visibility, and responsible purchasing increasingly important.
• Traceability and comparable data are becoming core business infrastructure as companies navigate fragmented supply chains and evolving regulatory requirements.
• C-suite leaders should integrate sourcing, resilience, sustainability, visibility, technology, and trade policy into a single strategic approach.

Trade Policy Is Reshaping Sourcing

US tariff measures contributed to the reconfiguration of more than USD 400 billion in global trade flows in 2025. The long-standing model of highly optimized global supply chains is shifting toward resilient efficiency as companies balance cost and speed with diversification, flexibility, redundancy, and visibility.

Tariffs, export controls, industrial policy, and other trade measures are accelerating moves toward multi-country sourcing, nearshoring, dual sourcing, and regional supply networks. While diversification can reduce exposure to individual markets and suppliers, it also adds cost and complexity, making end-to-end visibility increasingly important.

The shift is already measurable. In a 2025 McKinsey survey of 100 global companies, consumer goods firms reported the greatest tariff exposure, with tariffs affecting 43 percent of their supply chain activities. Among those affected, 45 percent were increasing inventories, 39 percent were pursuing dual sourcing, and 33 percent were developing nearshoring or onshoring plans.

Sustainability and Resilience Are Interconnected

Supply chain diversification can introduce sustainability challenges as companies add suppliers with different environmental and social performance. Regionalizing production may reduce transportation emissions, but in apparel and footwear, significant impacts remain upstream in raw materials, processing, and manufacturing.

At the same time, supply chain redesign can improve transparency, strengthen supplier accountability, and integrate sustainability into sourcing decisions. Analysis in the report emphasizes that sustainability should be built into resilience strategies rather than treated as a separate priority.

“In a fragmenting market, you cannot manage what you cannot see, and every move toward nearshoring or dual sourcing multiplies the suppliers, rulebooks, and audits a company has to stand behind. No single brand can reconcile that alone. Turning a patchwork of diverging requirements into a common way to measure and share performance, and making sure manufacturers have a voice in how the rules take shape, is the work an industry alliance exists to do,” said Lee Green, vice president, of marketing, communications & public affairs at Cascale.

Traceability Becomes Core Infrastructure

As supplier networks become more complex and regulatory requirements diverge, traceability and standardized data are becoming essential to managing risk and understanding performance. Emerging requirements around due diligence, product sustainability, and Digital Product Passports are further increasing demand for reliable supply chain information.

Common standards can also reduce the cost and complexity of collecting and reconciling data across suppliers, markets, and regulatory regimes.

What C-Suite Leaders Need to Do

The report calls on consumer goods leaders to treat resilience, sustainability, sourcing, and supply chain visibility as interconnected priorities. Key actions include diversifying sourcing, strengthening supplier mapping and traceability, integrating sustainability into sourcing decisions, monitoring geopolitical risks, using technology and AI to improve forecasting and scenario planning, and adopting common standards for comparable and interoperable data.

What This Means for Cascale Members

For Cascale members, the analysis reinforces the value of standardized measurement and shared infrastructure as supply chains become more diverse. The Higg Index suite of tools, stewarded by Cascale and exclusively available on Worldly, provides a common approach for assessing and understanding supplier performance across global supply chains.

Cascale will continue engaging policymakers and industry stakeholders on harmonized approaches to sustainability data and supply chain transparency. In a more fragmented trade environment, companies that can identify risks early, respond quickly, and use reliable data to guide decisions will be better positioned to strengthen both resilience and business performance.

ABOUT CASCALE

Cascale is the global nonprofit industry alliance where consumer goods organizations turn shared sustainability ambitions into measurable progress at scale to combat climate change and support decent work for all. We unite 300 Corporate and Affiliate members in pre-competitive collaboration, turning shared measurement and collective action into reduced risk, stronger credibility, and long-term resilience. Our work is anchored by Cascale’s stewardship of the Higg Index frameworks (accessed through the Worldly compliance and sustainability platform), along with the Better Buying and Sustainable Furnishings Council tools.

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