Belém, 15 November 2025 - Today marks the launch of the Global Supply Chain Coalition: a bold partnership between UN Women and the German Agency for Business and Economic Development inaugurated at COP30.
The sustainable, low-carbon and circular economy is expanding rapidly. As industries accelerate investments in decarbonization, circular business models and renewable energy, women remain critically underrepresented in technical and leadership roles. This isn't just unjust; it's unsustainable.
When companies embed gender equality into supplier engagement and accountability, they spark transformation far beyond their own operations. This ripple effect (from one committed WEPs signatory to potentially hundreds of suppliers) shows how transparency and the power of procurement can accelerate progress across entire industries.
Now, imagine what a coalition of companies could achieve together for gender equality.
That's the promise of the (Global Supply Chain Coalition) GSCC: to leverage collective procurement power and turn supply chains into global forces for equality.
Supply chains: A pathway to global impact
A supply chain is the entire system that brings a product or service from its starting point to the final customer. It includes everything and everyone involved: from sourcing raw materials, to manufacturing, transporting, to storing and selling the product. Supply chains can be local or span the globe, depending on a company's size, industry and location.
Each supply chain connects numerous actors both upstream (raw material suppliers, component manufacturers) and downstream (distributors, retailers, end users), creating employment and opportunities far beyond any single company's walls.
The 2025 WEPs Global Survey Report found that while WEPs signatories have made significant progress in advancing gender equality in the workplace, companies found it challenging to operationalize gender equality in procurement and supply chain practices. One survey respondent based in Albania shared that: “The biggest challenge is to […] influence the supply chain to meet the standard we seek to set”.
The Global Supply Chain Coalition offers a pathway to advance gender equality across entire industries. When one company embeds gender equality in their supplier standards, the impact cascades. With the launch of the Global Supply Chain Coalition, we took a concrete step toward that future.
A shared promise for inclusive progress
Together with German Agency for Business and Economic Development (AWE in German), and in partnership with companies and institutions around the world, we aim to foster supply chains that recognize the full value of women's work and leadership.
This global coalition is more than a network. It is a shared promise: that progress will be inclusive and that sustainability and equality will move forward together. The Coalition provides its members with a practical platform to co-create and take collective action to bridge the gender gaps and promote women’s full participation and leadership in future-oriented sectors.
Building on the WEPs foundation
Nearly 12,000 companies worldwide have committed to the WEPs. This includes 202 German companies, among them Adidas, ALDI, Allianz, Behn Meyer Group, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Börse, Deutsche Telekom, Lidl, Mercedes-Benz, Nordex, Puma and SAP.
For many WEPs signatories, the focus has primarily been on creating inclusive corporate cultures, removing bias and discrimination in the workplace and recruiting women to leadership positions. The Global Supply Chain Coalition now aims to promote gender equality throughout the entire supply chain.
To better understand the challenges in this area, UN Women conducted a series of conversations, consultations, surveys, and pilot initiatives and their findings align with those highlighted in the 2025 WEPs Global Survey Report. These insights now inform the work of the Coalition and are intended to further strengthen the impact of the WEPs.
Key goals of the Global Supply Chain Coalition
- Mobilize WEPs signatories, particularly in sectors relevant to development and equality policy (such as energy, circular economy, and tourism) as well as in forward-looking areas like decarbonization and climate-friendly supply chains.
- Accelerate gender-sensitive measures in the workplace, marketplace, and community through practice-oriented support offerings and co-creation of new tools and resources.
- Strengthen transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain and position companies as multipliers for structural change.
Meaningfully engaging companies
These ambitious goals are possible, but only with broad support from companies to implement equality worldwide. An important point of contact will be a UN Women-established secretariat that provides individual advice to interested companies. Awareness-raising events during major summits and conferences, such as COP, serve to present measures and impacts to a large audience. Through "Solution Labs," the coalition explores solutions for specific gender-based inequalities, biases, and stereotypes in supply chains.
UN Women is currently conducting conversations with potential member companies to form a leadership group that will play a central role in the strategic and substantive set up of the GSCC. This leadership group will help expand the coalition’s footprint by inviting companies and their suppliers to join too.
By leveraging the collective power of supply chains, women will have better access to decent work and leadership roles shaping our economic future. This could sustainably transform the global business world.