Here are my predictions for responsible supply chain management in 2025.
There is no mission without margin
For decades terms like corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and ESG have dominated the corporate speak word-sphere. These terms represent a mission to reduce harm to people and planet. Google famously coined their own mission statement motto ‘don’t be evil’, only later to be revised to the slightly more specific ‘do the right thing’. For most boards and management teams, mission statements are code for cost centers. Like it or not, you gotta put the oxygen on the business before you can save the world. The best run businesses know how to drive both mission and margin, but focusing on only one is a missed opportunity with real downsides. In 2025 you will need to prove your mission support profit margins.
AI-babble can’t fix bad products
We get it. Your company's uses AI. Thank you 2024 for driving those two vowels through our eyeballs and ears ad infinitum. Saying your product leverages AI in 2025 is like saying your software uses the internet in 2015. Companies in 2025 will realize the over hyped AI supply chain software they bought is at best slightly better than the 2023 software they purchased. Will AI make your software better? Absolutely…with time. Do yourself a favor and tell your marketing team to dial down the hype cycle. Customers want help not hype.
KYA: Kill your acronyms
William Faulkner taught writers to ‘kill their darlings’, a cute way of saying use less words. For decades, sustainability professionals have developed a language of acronyms unintelligible to the rest of the business. To be fair, everyone creates their own abbreviation jungle (ahem, looking at you government). Over time brevity becmes exclusivity. It's slow then all at once. I believe 2025 is year to slow down the language around sustainability to a level year 10 students can understand it. It's never easy to still one’s native tongue, but if you want your acceptance across department borders you need to speak the common tongue of value creation. So IMHO KYA ASAP.
Grievance is not a motivator
Grievance has been used as a marketing and political campaigning tactic for several years.There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a grievance about something unjust or broken. But something has changed. Markets shift. Leaders change. Attention mutates. And building your argument for systemic change with grievance in 2025 will find less attention than previous years. Winning is about having the best argument to the right audience at the right time. 2025 is a show-not-tell-year. Complaining about lack of ethics or sustainability will find few ears. This year focus on building better systems proven to save people, planet AND profits. In other words: Creation > Complaining.
Be A Voice Or Become An Echo
Most marketing teams spend the bulk of their time trying to be like someone else. This no longer works in 2025. If you are for everyone you are for no one. Everyone can smell the dank sweat of desperation of trying to fit in. What we seek is the fragrance of authenticity. Whether it be a product, a linkedin profile, or a budding career as a responsible sourcing manager, owning an authentic point of view is the only way to move forward. If you have something you want to move forward, be it a career or cause, you need to become a voice, not an echo. Come what may.
2025 marks a pivotal year for supply chain management, where authenticity, clarity, and actionable innovation will define success. It's not enough to talk about ethics or sustainability—leaders must demonstrate how these values drive profitability while creating meaningful impact. Explore FRDM.co to learn more, request a demo, or connect with our supply chain management specialists to take your supply chain strategy to the next level. Learn how to Buy Better in 2025.
