A responsible source is something I think of when purchasing a product as a consumer. Where did this product originate from? Where were the ingredients harvested, or chemicals resourced? Did the producer do everything in their power to ensure the resourcing company abided by certain labor laws and regulations? A company uses a responsible source when taking ethics into consideration and socially conscious methods to source materials for their products, environmental considerations in the manifestation and infancy stages of production, and the accountability of the host company has to the consumer who is purchasing the product. My mother once worked in a sweatshop in Los Angeles sewing clothing when we first immigrated to the US$.$ Although she received the minimum wage since she had a green card, the majority of the Hispanic and Asian workers did not have proper documentation, thus receiving meager pay under the table. I always wondered if the organizations that purchased the completed clothing materials realized or cared about the working conditions of their sourcing factories.

The three risk factors of utilizing mixed sourcing strategy are buyer$-$supplier proximity in supply and demand uncertainties that lead to possible long lead times, large inventory that must be kept in global distribution centers, and overall cost increase with decrease in service levels $($Kong$,$ Y$.$ & Goh, T$.$ N$.,2015).$

Long lead time resulting from a lack of manufacturing technology and skill in a developing country would extend production cycle time. If we continue to source from domestic shipment network, the single sourcing strategy will continue the stability of long$-$term relationship with the suppliers and the reduction of overheads required for handling multiple suppliers that would lose our trust and confidence $($Firoozi et$.$ al$.,2020).$

Large inventory levels create havoc for short shelf$-$life risk of products that may expire while in storage or long transit. A company that has bottlenecked the supply process with a large amount of stock can generate high inventory costs, jeopardizing log$-$term profitability and viability $($Li et$.$ al$.,2021).$ The sourcing company from developing nations will have longer transit times, creating high risk of expired agricultural products. $$

Cost increase and decrease in service levels are the next risk to mixed sourcing methods. The buyer$-$supplier proximity and long lead time may result in an increase in costs to the consumer and degrade the quality of service to the consumer. According to Wu et$.$ al$.(2025),$ supply disruptions can cost a company daily losses amounting to $50$ million to $100$ million from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and a daily loss of $$10$ billion resulting from the Suez Canal blockage in $2021.$ These significant events led to the destruction of supply companies, which would be avoided if we used a single source supplier from the US$.$

Sourcing under uncertain conditions should be handled by utilizing a mixed sourcing strategy that is flexible, proportionate to balance the sourcing from global and domestic, without compromising agility. The mixed sourcing strategy will assist managers at a company to plan for the proportion to find this balance by using technology to select suppliers, meet specific requirements, and the performance of the digital process to share and reduce uncertainties. These strategies will drive the product quality to shorten the production cycle, savings from costs of labor by choosing the best supply chains through evaluation, thus linking the delivery time vs product quality to minimize sourcing in uncertain conditions.

Provide substantive feedback on how one of the three risks identified could be mitigated