New Sustainability Regulation Requirement Gathering
Understand how a new sustainability regulation applies to your business and agree what is needed to implement it.
Purpose of the template
New sustainability regulation can affect products, operations, reporting, supply chains, data, contracts, customer relationships, and business strategy. This template helps teams translate a regulation into a clear, coordinated implementation plan.
It supports early understanding of legal applicability, business impacts, specific compliance obligations, data and evidence needs, ownership, gaps, and practical next steps.
What is included
The template follows six connected stages:
Regulation at a glance
Business impact
Requirements to meet
Data, systems & evidence
Owners & stakeholders
Gaps & implementation plan
Each stage includes guiding questions covering scope, deadlines, exemptions, operational impacts, reporting duties, supplier due diligence, evidence, governance, training, systems, and ongoing monitoring.
How to use it
Start by completing the header with the regulation name, jurisdiction, compliance deadline, business units in scope, document owner, and review date.
Work from Stage 1 to Stage 6. Add evidence, official sources, assumptions, questions, risks, decisions, and actions as you go. Where information is missing or uncertain, record it clearly rather than guessing.
Use the template to distinguish what is already in place, partly in place, and not yet addressed. Identify which requirements are recurring and which are one-off implementation actions. Finish by agreeing priority gaps, accountable owners, decisions, milestones, and deadlines.
Suggested workshop
Run this as a 90–120 minute cross-functional workshop when a new regulation is announced, when its applicability becomes clearer, or before implementation begins.
Before the session, gather the official regulation text, guidance, relevant standards, existing policies, data inventories, supplier information, and internal processes that may be affected.
Begin by agreeing the scope and key deadlines. Then work through the business-impact, requirements, and evidence stages, capturing both confirmed obligations and points that require further legal or specialist advice. Use the final part of the session to prioritise gaps, assign owners, and create an initial implementation plan.
Who it is for
Use this template with legal, compliance, sustainability, finance, procurement, operations, HR, IT, sales, communications, product, and leadership teams. It is also useful when working with suppliers, auditors, consultants, regulators, investors, and customers.
A starting point, not legal advice
The template is prefilled with suggested questions and considerations to help teams get started. These are prompts—not legal advice, fixed answers, or a complete checklist. Change, remove, or add to them to reflect the regulation, jurisdiction, business model, sector, and internal context.
Confirm regulatory interpretations with appropriate legal, compliance, or technical specialists where needed.
What you will leave with
A shared view of whether and how the regulation applies, the key requirements to meet, affected business areas, evidence and system needs, named owners, priority gaps, and an implementation plan with actions and deadlines.
