Danish Startup Raises $2M for Sustainable Supply Chain Benchmarking

The Path to Net Zero: Enhancing Supply Chain Sustainability

Achieving net zero emissions and averting climate change necessitates a commitment to sustainability across all products, influencing every consumer purchase. However, realizing this goal requires significantly increased transparency. This means greater access to data regarding suppliers, enabling improved sourcing practices and company performance evaluations.

Despite the best efforts of many organizations, a substantial portion of environmental concerns, such as CO2 emissions, originate within the complexities of the supply chain.

Introducing Responsibly: A Supply Chain Scorecard

Danish startup Responsibly offers a solution by providing retailers, construction firms, and other businesses with a comprehensive scorecard evaluating their supply networks. This allows companies to determine if any tier of their supply chain is linked to issues like deforestation, water contamination, human rights abuses, or disparities in gender pay.

The company has recently secured $2 million in a pre-seed funding round, spearheaded by Flash Ventures. Additional investors include Pirate Impact, the family office of Fabian & Ferry Heilemann, and Michael Wax, founder and CEO of Planetly Benedikt Franke.

Platform Launch and Future Development

With this new funding, Responsibly is preparing to soft-launch the initial version of its platform. This version will analyze data from over 10,000 suppliers for a select group of pilot customers.

Thomas Buch Andersson, co-founder and CEO of Responsibly, stated: “Our aim is to simplify the evaluation of suppliers based on planetary considerations, mirroring the ease with which they are assessed on price. We believe this will unlock a powerful catalyst for change within global procurement departments.”

The Shift Towards Impact-Driven Procurement

Johann Nordhus Westarp, founding partner at Flash Ventures, commented: “The current moment is opportune, as companies will fundamentally reshape their procurement strategies in the coming years. Procurement decisions will evolve from being primarily price- or value-driven to being impact-driven.”

He further explained that many companies currently operate with limited visibility, addressing immediate problems reactively. Responsibly provides the necessary insight into procurement footprints, enabling proactive and informed decision-making.

The Scale of Supply Chain Emissions and Digital Transformation

Data from CDP indicates that approximately 40% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are either directly caused by or influenced through corporate purchasing and product sales. Furthermore, Gartner predicts that 23% of supply chain leaders anticipate implementing a digital ecosystem by 2025, a significant increase from the 1% reported today.

Buch Andersson explained: “The landscape of responsible sourcing has matured considerably over the past two decades. We are developing a layer that integrates with various data providers, empowering procurement teams to flexibly access, interpret, and utilize information for informed sourcing decisions.”

Competitive Landscape

Responsibly operates within a competitive market, with key players including EcoVadis and Integrity Next.

Key Takeaways:

• Increased supply chain transparency is crucial for achieving net zero goals.
• Responsibly provides a scorecard to assess supplier sustainability.
• The procurement landscape is shifting towards impact-driven decision-making.
• Digital ecosystems are becoming increasingly important in supply chain management.