As the curtains close on 2025, one thing is abundantly clear: this was not just another year in the world of compliance and sustainability; it was a turning point. Across industries, teams faced a tidal wave of regulatory complexity, operational pressure, and increasing stakeholder expectations. But within that challenge came remarkable progress, strategic innovation, and the foundation for a promising future. Let's connect the dots between the major regulatory developments of 2025 and the opportunities on the horizon. Let’s take a step back, see the big picture, and position ourselves to lead with confidence in 2026.
If 2025 felt like a constant sprint, you weren’t imagining it. Product compliance and sustainability teams faced an unprecedented volume of regulatory change -spanning chemicals, product safety, packaging, labeling, and more- across virtually every major market. The “job” was no longer just tracking requirements; it became a high-stakes exercise in protecting market access, managing risk, and translating fast-moving rules into day-to-day operational reality.
At the same time, sustainability accelerated from “boardroom ambition” to “operational expectation,” propelled by new regulations, investor scrutiny, and stakeholder pressure. In other words: the compliance load didn’t simply increase, it broadened, deepened, and began to connect across disciplines. The good news? This year’s intensity also clarified what winning looks like. And it set the stage for 2026 to be a year of smarter systems, stronger cross-functional alignment, and real competitive advantage.
Below is the wrap-up, less about individual rules, and more about the macro developments that shaped 2025 and will define how leading organizations move in 2026.
One of the clearest patterns in 2025 was how product compliance and sustainability stopped being parallel tracks and started becoming a single, connected program. “Traditional” compliance hot spots -chemicals in products, packaging, batteries, product safety- are increasingly linked to sustainability outcomes like circularity, waste reduction, safer materials, and transparency.
Meanwhile, sustainability teams were pulled deeper into topics that look and feel like classic compliance: supply chain due diligence, ESG reporting, climate-related corporate reporting, labor and human rights, and forced labor/modern slavery requirements. The result is a new reality: companies can’t scale compliance without sustainability data, and they can’t prove sustainability without compliance-grade controls.
What this means for 2026? The organizations that build a single governance model—shared data foundations, shared controls, shared accountability—will move faster and with fewer surprises than those managing two separate universes.
2025 reinforced a major shift: regulators don’t just want “compliance.” They want evidence -structured, auditable, and increasingly digital. This showed up in heightened attention to product-level traceability concepts (like the Digital Product Passport), transparency obligations, and new expectations around disclosures tied to product composition, sourcing, and end-of-life outcomes.
Sustainability regulation echoed this move toward proof as well, with sustained demand for standardized ESG disclosure and climate-related reporting, plus growing scrutiny of environmental claims and related liabilities (anti-greenwashing).
What this means for 2026? The strategic advantage won’t come from tracking regulations alone; it will come from building a “compliance-ready product record” that can serve multiple needs -market access, sustainability reporting, customer requests, and regulatory audits- without reinventing the wheel each time.
If you had to pick the theme that kept resurfacing in product compliance queries, it would be circularity in action. Packaging remained a top focus area, alongside batteries and product safety, reflecting a global push toward better materials, clearer labeling, and stronger end-of-life accountability.
On the sustainability side, regulatory interest surged around waste frameworks, batteries and battery waste, critical raw materials recovery, and disclosure related to unsold consumer products -signals that “design, use, recover” is becoming a regulatory storyline, not a voluntary aspiration.
What this means for 2026? Circular economy requirements are no longer niche. They’re becoming a mainstream compliance and brand expectation—especially for product categories that touch packaging, electronics, textiles, and battery-enabled goods.
2025 continued to put chemicals under the spotlight. Teams tracked ongoing changes related to restricted substances, chemicals in products, and RoHS-type concerns -alongside heightened attention to PFAS developments and persistent organic pollutants themes. These aren’t just technical compliance topics anymore; they affect product strategy, supplier qualification, materials innovation, and brand trust.
Sustainability discussions also mirrored this, connecting “sustainable products” and restricted substances into a shared challenge: safer chemistries, better material choices, and defensible product claims.
What this means for 2026? Companies that treat chemicals management as a proactive capability -supplier data collection, smarter BOM governance, and scalable substantiation- will reduce fire drills and accelerate product development.
Another macro development that sharpened in 2025: sustainability compliance is increasingly supply-chain-shaped. Supply chain due diligence was the most-queried sustainability topic, alongside ESG reporting and climate-related corporate reporting. Human rights, labor considerations, and modern slavery/forced labor obligations also remained prominent.
At the same time, product compliance teams faced increasing cross-border complexity in sourcing-linked requirements, including deforestation-related regulatory attention and broader market controls connected to upstream impacts.
What this means for 2026? Due diligence will keep expanding -from “do we have a policy?” to “can we demonstrate controls, traceability, remediation, and governance across tiers?” The teams who operationalize this (not just document it) will be best positioned when regulators, customers, and investors ask for proof.
In 2025, regulatory activity clustered strongly in major markets -particularly the USA and EU- but also across Asia-Pacific and beyond. Product compliance saw significant activity across the USA, EU, China, the UK, and multiple Asian jurisdictions. Sustainability showed a similarly diverse footprint, with high activity across the USA, EU, and a spread of regions including parts of Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
This is more than “more rules.” It’s a structural shift toward fragmentation: different timelines, scopes, definitions, and reporting expectations. Organizations that operate globally are now managing a portfolio of regulatory regimes that evolve in parallel.
What this means for 2026? A strong compliance strategy will look like a capability stack: horizon scanning, internal interpretation, scalable implementation playbooks, and repeatable evidence generation built for change, not for one-off projects.
One of the most telling insights from 2025 wasn’t just what changed, but how teams responded. As complexity grew, it became clear that teams didn’t just need information; they needed interpretation, connection, and support. That’s a healthy signal. It means organizations are moving beyond “tracking” and toward real operationalization: aligning stakeholders, translating requirements into design decisions, and building the muscle to respond quickly without burning out.
Let’s call it what it is: 2025 put compliance and sustainability professionals under heavy pressure. But it also proved their strategic value. These teams were often the difference between reactive chaos and controlled momentum, between market delays and market access.
Here’s the opportunity for 2026: turn last year’s pressure into a performance advantage. The winners will be the teams that standardize data, build repeatable evidence, and align compliance + sustainability into one integrated operating rhythm. The playbook is clear: invest early in traceability, unify product and ESG information flows, strengthen supplier engagement, and design controls that scale across jurisdictions.
And the urgency is real because regulators, customers, and investors are not waiting for “later.” Start 2026 by choosing a handful of high-impact moves you can execute fast: consolidate your regulatory priorities, map them to product lines and markets, modernize your documentation and data strategy, and build cross-functional clarity on ownership. Do that now, and you won’t just keep up in 2026; you’ll lead.
Here is to a successful 2026 for you, your business and your loved ones!