New research has shed light on which channel partners are leading the way when it comes to progress against three key sustainability initiatives.
Omdia’s Partner 1000 Sustainability Analysis examines how the world’s top channel partners are faring across SBTi, CDP and EcoVadis as customers continue to pile pressure on them to become more sustainable.
Its release follows the publication of the Omdia Partner 1000, which ranks the world’s 1,000 largest VARs, MSPs, GSIs, SIs, service providers, consultancies and MSSPs by revenue.
Large customers now actively expect their suppliers to align with this trio of pre-eminent sustainability ratings and commitments, the analyst noted.
As evidence, it cited Walmart’s requirement for suppliers to report their sustainability data annually via CDP, as well as Pfizer’s target for 64% of its top suppliers to have science-aligned goals by 2025, in line with SBTi.
Closer to home, the NHS now grades suppliers and firms bidding on tenders on maturity, with the most mature required to have EcoVadis or CDP ratings.
Some 41% of partners Omdia questioned this July said more than 30% of RfPs they receive now include environmental sustainability criteria, up from 31% in 2023, meanwhile.
SBTi star performers
For the top 30 partners in the Partner 1000, SBTi [Science-Based Targets initiative] alignment is now standard, Omdia said.
It is the most costly and time-consuming of the three dominant sustainability rating frameworks, the analyst noted in its research, which was carried out by Senior Analyst Ben Caddy.
Some 87% of the top 30 have validated Near-Term SBTi targets, while 53% have both validated Near-Term and Long-Term targets.
At 63% and 40%, respectively, those two figures drop a tad for the wider top 100.
A wide array of larger VARs now have validated Near-Term and Long-Term SBTi targets, including UK-based outfits Computacenter, Softcat, SCC, Bytes Technology Group and Jigsaw24, as well as global players WWT, Advania, Kinly, Bechtle, Atea, Logicalis and Telefonica Tech.
Econocom, CDW, SHI, AHEAD, SoftwareOne and Kerv are among those to have had Near-Term targets only validated.
CDP MVPs
Some 16% of the top 1000 partners now disclose their climate impacts to CDP [Carbon Disclosure Project], meanwhile.
The majority of the largest partners have CDP Climate Scores of A or B, Omdia noted.
Atea and Telefonica Tech are among the VARs and MSPs scoring an A here.
Computacenter and Axians are in the A- bracket, CDW, WWT, SHI, Logicalis and Softcat all have a B to their name, while Cancom, Maintel and Bytes Technology Group are rated B-.
Insight, SoftwareOne, ePlus and Meridian are among those scoring a C with CDP.
Excelling at Ecovadis
Engagement is also high with EcoVadis, which is designed to assess companies’ sustainability efforts including environmental and supply chain impacts.
Some 27% of the top 30 hold EcoVadis Platinum status – a number that drops to 20% and 4% among the wider top 100 and top 1,000, respectively.
Some 20% of the top 30 hold Gold status (compared with 17% and 5% for the wider top 100 and 1,000), while 30% (vs 18% and 7% for the wider top 100 and 1,000) and 7% (vs 11% and 5%) hold Silver and Bronze status, respectively.
Nordic VAR Atea yet again falls into the highest tier possible here, alongside the likes of Econocom and Advania.
These efforts come despite mixed progress on sustainability across the wider IT industry, with AI datacentre build outs resulting in hyperscaler emissions heading in the wrong direction. Caddy last October said sustainability suffered a “total systems crash” last year.
Addressing why so many partners have committed to these frameworks, Omdia stressed that pressure is coming not only from end users but also vendors concerned about their own downstream impact. Sustainability is also now embedded into many vendor partner programmes, the analyst added.
Sustainability standards galore
Omdia characterised SBTi, CDP and EcoVadis as the dominant forces in the sustainability certification, framework and ratings space.
But channel partners have a much wider array of initiatives to navigate, it emphasised.
This includes reporting and disclosure standards such as the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and investment-related ESG ratings, as well as vendor badges such as Lenovo 360 Circle, HP Amplify Impact and Cisco’s Environmental Sustainability specialisation.
Omdia also flagged up sustainability certifications such as B Corp, which our own research found is now held by at least 34 UK MSPs.
The statuses/ratings of partners in Omdia’s research are accurate as of mid-July, it stressed.
The 1,000 partners featured in Omdia’s Partner 1000 generated revenues of around $547bn in their latest annual periods.
They include not only VAR giants such as Computacenter, CDW and WWT, but also IT services behemoths including Accenture, IBM, EY and DXC.
