“Sustainability needs to be at eye level” – Guest commentary by Anne Wedel-Klein, CEO of the nature network

Anyone who bears entrepreneurial responsibility today feels it clearly: Expectations of sustainability are rising – and so is the pressure to act in the supply chains. Customers and market companions are committing to ambitious goals, investors are asking about ESG criteria, regulations are becoming more extensive and complex. And often something happens that actually contradicts the spirit of sustainability: The pressure is passed down the supply chain.

Suppliers and pre-producers are confronted with ever new requirements that they can hardly meet – simply because the financial and structural prerequisites are lacking. While some large companies proudly announce sustainability goals, it remains unclear who is actually investing in the change and who is implementing it.

This is precisely one of the central challenges of our time: If sustainability becomes a duty on one side of the value chain, but leads to overextension on the other, no transformation occurs, but an imbalance.

Supply chains are human chains

At the nature network, we therefore speak of “supply chains as human chains.” Because behind every raw material, every product, every number in the sustainability report are people, relationships, and common goals.

We believe that real progress can only be achieved if everyone along the entire chain makes a contribution and we arrive at sustainable solutions through partnership. This includes not only formulating requirements, but also providing support – technically, organizationally, and sometimes financially.

This is neither romanticism nor idealism. It is economic common sense. Because a supply chain that is based only on pressure is not resilient. A supply chain that is based on cooperation finds answers to the crises of our time.

Eye level beats instruction

Eye level means: We see our partners in the value creation not as helpers, but as co-creators. When we develop standards, reduce CO₂e emissions, or implement projects for biodiversity, we do so in dialogue – not with pressure and by instruction.

An example of this is mabagrown – our active sustainable supply chain management.
We developed it because existing standards and seals are often in the shop window, but do not deliver in the supply chain what is really important to us: close cooperation for measurable progress along verifiable economic, ecological and social criteria.

Another example is our Go-Zero initiative: By 2030, we want to operate climate-neutrally from our locations to our global supply chains. This is ambitious – and it is necessary. As a manufacturer of natural products, we experience the effects of climate change daily and directly. Droughts, heavy rainfall, crop failures – all of this directly affects our raw materials. Sustainability is therefore not idealism for us, but risk management in the best sense.

Sustainability as a relationship business

Our biggest realization of the past years is: Sustainability is not a compliance issue, but a relationship issue.

Where companies talk to each other, listen and learn from each other, solutions emerge that really last. Where trust has grown, changes can be implemented more quickly and effectively. And where economic success and ecological responsibility are not played off against each other, future viability arises – for both sides.

This attitude requires courage. Courage to forego short-term effects in order to gain long-term stability. Courage to invest in dialogues that are not always comfortable.
And courage to share responsibility – with partners who want to go the same way.

Conclusion

Sustainability needs eye level. It needs trust instead of distrust, cooperation instead of pressure, shared responsibility instead of transferred burdens.

If we manage to integrate this principle into the DNA of our supply chains, then more than just regulatory compliance will emerge. Then a new understanding of economic activity arises – one that lasts.

In the end, this is not a moral, but a strategic decision: Because sustainable partnerships are the only reliable basis for economic stability in our time.

Anne Wedel-Klein
CEO the nature network

As CEO of the the nature network group, Anne Wedel-Klein leads the family business in the fourth generation. After international positions in studies and consulting, she joined the management and strategically expanded the topics of sustainability, culture and communication in the family business. She combines entrepreneurial tradition with a clear view of the future.

the nature network is an internationally active group of companies that offers plant-based solutions for the beverage, food, dietary supplement, pharmaceutical and animal nutrition industries. The MartinBauer division was awarded the German Sustainability Award on December 5, 2025.

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