Achieving carbon neutrality: strategic pathways to sustainability and net zero in manufacturing supply chains

Reaching global net-zero targets has become an urgent priority as businesses and nations face increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Achieving carbon neutrality in manufacturing supply chains requires comprehensive systemic changes across business processes. It demands forward-looking strategies that guide companies toward long-term sustainability and net-zero objectives. While earlier research has identified several drivers and barriers, there remains a lack of clear, actionable roadmaps that companies can follow. This paper fills this research gap by determining eleven interdependent strategies and grouping them into six levels of hierarchy and discovered that they play the roles of driving and dependent. Results showed that important strategies consist of policy development and incentives, carbon accounting, collaborative learning, renewable energy adoption, low-emission transportation, digitalization, and circular practices. Using expert insights and a multi-round Delphi technique, the study identifies key strategies, which are then organized through total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) and cross-impact matrix-multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) analysis. Results identify a pathway roadmap where strategies connect, allowing businesses to focus on initiatives including circular practices, digitalization, and waste reduction. Policy and incentives serve as essential tools, with companies responsible for turning concepts into key performance indicators. Our research offers a blueprint for global organizations to better align efforts, lower emissions, and work toward net-zero. It outlines the relationship among the strategies and priorities needed by global companies and governments to develop effective cross-border collaboration and coordinate sustainability efforts, thus supporting climate change commitments.