Is Your Organization Protected From a Weaponized Supply Chain?

Businesses around the world are learning that a risk-mitigation approach based on traditional models is insufficient to navigate the challenges global supply chains are facing in 2026. This two-part Deep Dive series looks at the most serious supply chain risks for which organizations should be planning and what organizations can do to ensure stability and resiliency for customers.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers didn’t think much about the global supply chain. Items appeared on shelves and were seamlessly replaced when they ran out. We ordered things online, and they appeared at our door the next day. How any of that happened was not of much concern to anyone except supply chain specialists.

COVID-19 brought the complex and fragile interdependencies of the supply chain into the spotlight, but it also marked the beginning of a problem that goes beyond even the dangers of a global pandemic. Geopolitical conflict, operational crime, and cyberattacks have gone from isolated disruptions to everyday elements of supply chain risk.

As the world continues to experience social and economic upheaval, new threats such as terrorism, labor instability, and extreme weather resulting from environmental change have emerged to create a new, more complex threat profile. In 2026, the vulnerability of the global supply chain should concern more than just supply chain specialists. The pre-COVID-19 days of era of seemingly frictionless supply chains that effortlessly produce endless goods on demand are well and truly over.

For organizations in critical industries like chemicals and energy, the threats are enormous. Threats from extreme weather events, malicious actors, and outdated risk-management plans are converging to target even the smallest weaknesses. If your organization last reviewed its risk-mitigation plans for your supply chain more than few weeks ago, you may already be vulnerable - or under attack without realizing it.

The new BSI 2026 Supply Chain Risks and Opportunities Report analyzes the state of the global supply chain in 2026 and identifies an unsettled landscape of converging threats to threaten today’s organizations. Part One of our two-part series on the report examined the potential threats from geopolitical fragmentation, operational crime, and digital exposure. Part Two explores terrorism threats, labor unrest, and environmental risk.

Terrorism and Supply Chain Infiltration

Supply chains carry more than just physical components of critical products; they can also provide logistical support for terrorist organizations operating transnationally. They can be exploited to manipulate devices during production and even for smuggling weaponry in standard cargo flows. In addition to symbolic attacks on logistics routes, terrorists increasingly exploiting and weaponizing them for their own benefit. In the connected world of 2026, supply chains are now both the target and the facilitator of global terrorism, particularly in mining, energy, transportation and logistics, electronics manufacturing, and defense-adjacent industries.

Regions in conflict or adjacent to conflict are especially vulnerable. Weak governance means supply chains can be disrupted through blockades, convoy attacks, and intimidation of personnel.

According to the BSI report, terrorism moving through supply chains is no longer geographically contained and can spread well beyond active conflict zones.

“Managing this threat will require greater scrutiny of supplier integrity, enhanced monitoring of critical components and custody transitions, and security frameworks designed to identify manipulation earlier in the chain, before products, assets, or infrastructure are weaponized,” said the report. Supply chains in conflict regions will also require more local security solutions, including personnel.

Traditional approaches to supply chain security are insufficient in the face of these new threats. BSI said that stronger supplier vetting, end-to-end chain-of-custody controls, and anomaly detection across both procurement and quality-assurance stages will be critical for a security approach that meets the demands of these new threats.

Labor Unrest and Factory Closures

While technology might be advancing at a breathtaking rate, supply chains still run on human workers. During periods of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, labor unrest can disrupt critical logistics networks.

In 2025, labor disruption shifted from a short-term issue to a sustained, systemic risk in places like China, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, and the United States (U.S.), impacting labor-intensive sectors including apparel, food and beverage, agriculture, automotive, fuel, and textiles.

According to BSI, wage disputes were the primary trigger of labor disruptions, making up 42% of all incidents. Working conditions were second at 16%, and government policies were third at 10%.

Labor disruptions in China were concentrated in electronics and apparel businesses in Guangdong, largely linked to unpaid wages. In Bangladesh’s textile industry, energy shortages and political uncertainty were contributing factors to disruptions.

BSI said that organizations should increase engagement with their workforces to better understand the causes of labor instability, with sourcing diversification and attention to leading indicators such as overtime arrears, utility rationing, and buyer payment backlogs critical for anticipating potential labor disruptions.

“Early engagement with suppliers and their workforces becomes increasingly important,” said the report. “Reliable communication channels between supplier management and employees provide earlier visibility into workforce conditions, grievances, and operational constraints.”

Climate and Environmental Risk

Climate change is no longer a future risk, and extreme weather events are becoming regular occurrences instead of isolated shocks, with significant impacts on production, transportation, and worker availability and safety. In 2025, Hurricane Melissa caused $52 billion in losses across Jamaica, Cuba, and the Caribbean, while wildfires in North America and the European Union (EU) caused evacuations and transportation disruptions. These extreme events are expected to grow in frequency and severity as global warming advances, requiring diversified sourcing, dynamic safety stock, and climate-adjusted lead times.

BSI’s report noted that beyond the immediate impact of such events, organizations need to monitor the regulatory response.

“As climate shocks intensify and the costs of inaction grow, regulatory systems are resetting at a higher baseline of oversight,” stated the report. “What once felt like rapidly emerging requirements now represents the starting point for a future in which climate accountability, supply chain transparency, and environmental stewardship will be continuously and increasingly enforced.”

Despite political pushback in both the EU and the U.S. against efforts to address climate change, the regulatory environment continues to push forward with requirements that pose significant risks to organizations across global supply chains. Extended producer responsibility (EPR) requirements are moving the burden for packaging waste management from consumers to companies, while the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies doing business in the EU to adopt sustainability reporting standards that are aligned with recognized frameworks like the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), and European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).

Materials and Sustainability Regulatory Manager Cassidy Spencer at 3E said that companies along the supply chain should recognize that regulatory action related to climate change is more than just political opportunism.

“One of the biggest mistakes companies still make is treating climate regulation as a political overlay, when in reality it is increasingly a response to physical disruption,” said Spencer. “Regulators are watching climate-related shocks move from episodic to systemic. A flood, wildfire, or drought no longer affects just one site; it cascades through transport corridors, energy systems, agricultural inputs, insurance markets, and supplier solvency.”

Spencer said that the logic behind many climate rules is not simply emissions reduction in the abstract, but forcing earlier visibility, better governance, and more disciplined risk allocation before those shocks become financially and operationally unmanageable.

Sustainability considerations extend beyond environmental risks to social risks, which are deeply interconnected. In the EU, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), though heavily revised by the recent Omnibus project, requires organizations to maintain insight into the potential for human rights abuses along the supply chain. Organizations, therefore, need to consider environmental and social risks as part of holistic risk assessments instead of siloed approaches to unrelated topics.

“Organizations should also strengthen climate governance by embedding these risks into enterprise-risk management, with clear accountability, board oversight, and cross-functional ownership,” said the report. “At the same time, they should build repeatable data collection, validation, and reporting processes that can support CSRD and other emerging requirements across jurisdictions.”

Global Supply Chains Mean Global Threats: Planning for the Future

BSI’s report provides a snapshot of the most pertinent threats to the global supply chain. However, these threats are evolving quickly, with new risks emerging regularly.

In a webinar, Tony Pelli, practice director of security and resilience at BSI, said that while many companies had attempted to apply lessons on supply chain resilience after COVID-19 and the outbreak of war in Ukraine, today’s supply chain disruptions require a new type of long-term, risk-based thinking.

“I don’t think any sort of crisis management scenario or tabletop exercise has you looking at a three-to-six-month period for sustaining that sort of crisis management exercise,” said Pelli. “What we are seeing now is customers looking at how to maintain that posture on an ongoing basis.”

On the same webinar, David Fairnie, supply chain security consultant at BSI, said that traditional business continuity plans (BCPs) are no longer fit for purpose in a disrupted world.

“What we’re talking about is external geopolitical events impacting networks, organizations, and complex supply chains, not just single-site facilities,” said Fairnie. “BCPs were built around short-term incident management or emergency management scenarios.”

Fairnie also said that business impact assessment processes are no longer fit for purpose because they do not include the network impact of complex, interrelated events and are not scenario-driven in a way that addresses today’s extended crises.

“I think the new norm is going to be organizations intentionally building resilience into the organization, which includes looking at sustaining a crisis and resilience posture for as long as it’s required,” said Fairnie. He further noted that for today’s companies, recovering from the past is no longer the objective, and that supply chain actors need to plan for continued disruption while optimizing for adaptability.

The message of the report is that today’s risks are not events; they are ongoing conditions that can present in one domain and quickly cascade across the entire supply chain, compounding over time until they threaten not just individual suppliers or customers but the integrity of the complex system as a whole. The key strategy for every organization is not to address individual risks in isolation but to anticipate the way those risks interact, enhance end-to-end visibility, and develop a holistic, systems-based approach that recognizes the complexity of managing risk across every stage of global supply chains.