The role of a successful CPO is changing dramatically and will continue to evolve through 2026. Rather than being seen primarily as a cost and risk function, CPOs are now expected to drive value across resilience, sustainability and growth, with ESG becoming a core part of the procurement agenda.
Procurement teams are now responsible for ensuring suppliers meet environmental standards, promote ethical labour practices and align on a company’s ESG strategy. As such, they must take action to meet emissions targets and drive Scope 3 change within businesses.
This is no simple task. Data collection is difficult – only around 6% of CPOs report having anything close to full visibility across their supply chains – and due to the tricky intersection between geopolitics, regulations, technology, and society, procurement decision-making has become increasingly complex.
Despite these challenges, action is essential. Only around 6% of companies are on track to meet their Scope 3 goals. In 2026, CPOs will play a decisive role in shifting that trajectory.
This may not be a simple task, as the majority of a company’s Scope 3 emissions come from bought goods and services – which means that the supply chain must be looked at to have real impact.
Changing roles: what does this mean for a CPO’s remit?
Historically, responsibility for supply chain emissions reduction sat primarily with the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO). As CPOs control the majority of external spend, that responsibility is now increasingly shared: CSOs focus on interpreting legislation, setting enterprise-wide goals and defining ESG strategy, while CPOs embed those requirements into sourcing, contracts and supplier relationships
Supplier selection remains one of the CPO’s most critical responsibilities with the business, but the decision criteria are changing. Cost is still essential, yet it can no longer be the sole deciding factor. Leading CPOs now evaluate suppliers on total value and total impact – combining price, quality and service with carbon performance, broader environmental credentials, and social outcomes.
For decades, lead time was a dominant concern as just-in-time manufacturing and global supply chains became the norm to drive down costs. That model often favoured far-flung suppliers and fast, emissions-intensive transport, but recent disruptions have exposed how fragile these extended supply chains can be. Today, leading CPOs are deliberately sourcing closer to demand and simplifying supply routes. This is being done by accepting slightly longer planning horizons in exchange for greater resilience and significantly lower transport emissions – a critical lever for meeting Scope 3 targets.
The new procurement landscape requires sustainability and resilience to sit alongside cost and service as core metrics in supplier selection – even when this means consciously trading a little speed or unit price for lower emissions and as a result, a stronger long-term performance.
New collaborative opportunities
As the CPO’s function takes on a broader strategic remit, new opportunities for cross-departmental collaboration arise. A major avenue is opened between the procurement and marketing departments – not only can an organisation be sustainable, but they can actively market themselves as such. Sustainably marketed companies have a 5-year compound annual growth rate at nearly double that of companies which do not publicise their environmental work. Scope 3, procurement, and emission reduction aside – being sustainable is simply a shrewd business choice.
There is also the opportunity for CPOs to capitalise on their increasing centrality within business strategy and work on aligning organisation-wide ESG goals with those of the supply chain. Unifying the various environmental goals of the company into one clear target not only gives a singular goal to work towards but also concretises a business’ environmental strategy into a single, achievable entity. When the goal is clear and shared between all areas of the organisation it is much more likely to be met than fragmented and disjointed schemes.
CPOs also have the opportunity to strengthen the resilience of the company through building circular supply chains. These chains continuously re-use resources rather than constantly buying new ones, maximising efficiency, and minimising waste and environmental impact. A circular supply chain serves as a method for building very strong foundations in emission reduction, allowing further measures to have the maximum impact.
CPOs and Sustainable Futures
The role of the CPO has clearly evolved. Today’s leaders are expected to balance cost, service, risk and environmental and social performance while ensuring the supply chain remains reliable and competitive. To deliver on this broader remit, they are redesigning operating models, using better data and digital tools to improve visibility and decision-making, and enabling their teams to focus more time on strategic supplier engagement and cross-functional collaboration. In doing so, strategic procurement moves from being seen primarily as a cost-control function to being recognised as an enterprise-wide driver of growth, decarbonisation, and long-term resilience.
