Sedex Wins at the Institute for Supply Management's Supply Chain Trailblazer Awards

These awards recognise the businesses and emerging leaders shaping the future of supply chain through measurable business impact, innovation and leadership.

The past year has seen Sedex deliver a sweeping evolution of our solution and tools suite, significantly expanding the capability, automation and usability available to procurement leaders managing complex global supply chains.

Delivering smarter solutions for supply chain goals

Our recognition reflects our landmark £20+ million Platform transformation, culminating in 2025 – the largest technology investment in Sedex’s 20-year history. This modernised how teams across our customer network of over 100,000 businesses and 120,000 supply chain sites share, analyse, act and report on sustainability and responsible sourcing data. 

Another significant milestone is SMETA 7.0’s formal recognition by The Consumer Goods Forum’s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiative (SSCI): third-party validation that provides our customers with confidence in audit findings and a trusted foundation for their ethical sourcing strategies.

SMETA 7.0 represents the most comprehensive update in many years to the world’s most widely used social audit – enhancing critical issue detection, and strengthening collaborative resolution with the creation of the “Collaborative Action Required” finding type.

Approximately 67,000 SMETA audits were carried out in 2025, with our customers collectively resolving more than 250,000 issues identified at supply chain worksites across the year. Each one is an improvement in site management, risk mitigation, labour practices or working conditions.  

Tailoring SMETA for services industries

As leading businesses look to expand their responsible sourcing and due diligence programmes to more of their supply chains, in response to new laws, stakeholder demands and constant disruption in sourcing networks, we responded with SMETA for Service Providers, developed and piloted in 2025. 

This extends our leading methodology to sectors and workforces that have historically lacked tailored site-level assessment tools – such as catering, security and logistics industries, where activities take place across multiple client locations. 

Adapting SMETA for these distributed workforces and operations included extensive consultation with our customers, audit partners and external experts, alongside in-depth training for audit partners. Following this training, more than 25 auditing companies to date are now approved to conduct SMETA for Service Providers.

“We’re proud to receive this recognition from ISM because it reflects the progress our team has made in helping businesses manage complex supply chains with greater confidence.

“Over the past few years, we’ve significantly invested in our technology, data capabilities and assessment tools so our customers can identify risks earlier, prioritise action more effectively and demonstrate measurable improvement across their supply chains.

“This award recognises more than innovation in technology – it recognises the value of giving procurement and supply chain leaders better intelligence to make stronger business decisions in an increasingly unpredictable operating environment.”

Jon Hancock, CEO, Sedex

The Supply Chain Trailblazer Award reflects the strength of our solutions, teams and commitment to advancing supply chain sustainability as a strategic driver of our customers’ long-term success. 

Award winners were recognised at the ISM Awards Gala earlier this year in Denver, Colorado.

Learn more about our Sedex Platform and other solutions for responsible, sustainable supply chains.