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Notes on product compliance

What is changing in CSRD, extended producer responsibility and the digital product passport, and what it means for companies that make physical things. Written by the people building the platform.

CSRD

CSRD After Omnibus: Who Is Actually Still In Scope

The Omnibus revision raised CSRD thresholds to 1,000 employees and €450m turnover. Here is who remains in scope, what changed for listed SMEs, and why de-scoped producers still face EPR and passport obligations.

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1 August 2026 · 7 min read
CSRD

ESRS E1: What The Climate Datapoints Actually Ask For

ESRS E1 runs to roughly 175 datapoints covering transition plans, targets, energy and gross Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. A practical walkthrough of what each block demands and where filings commonly fall short.

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29 July 2026 · 6 min read
CSRD

Double Materiality: How To Score Topics Defensibly

Double materiality assessment drives which ESRS disclosures apply. A practical method for scoring impact and financial materiality, setting thresholds, and documenting the reasoning an assurance provider will test.

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25 July 2026 · 6 min read
CSRD

Why Your CSRD XBRL Export Probably Will Not Validate

Digital tagging is where first CSRD filings fail. Invented namespaces and plausible concept names produce files that open fine and reject at the gate. What the EFRAG ESRS taxonomy requires and how to test against it.

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22 July 2026 · 7 min read
Assurance

Limited Assurance: What Auditors Actually Ask For

Sustainability assurance is mandatory under CSRD. What a limited assurance engagement tests, the evidence auditors request first, and how to prepare a data trail that survives the questions.

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18 July 2026 · 6 min read
Assurance

How To Restate A Signed Sustainability Disclosure

Corrections after sign-off are normal. What a compliant restatement requires, why overwriting figures destroys your audit position, and how a supersede workflow keeps prior versions intact.

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15 July 2026 · 6 min read
Carbon

Scope 2: Location-Based And Market-Based Explained

ESRS requires location-based Scope 2 reporting with market-based alongside. What each method measures, how grid factors and contractual instruments differ, and the errors that inflate or understate figures.

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11 July 2026 · 6 min read
Carbon

Emission Factor Libraries: Vintage, Geography And Traceability

An emission factor is only correct for a specific place, period and activity. How to structure a factor library so figures stay reproducible, updates are safe, and every factor traces to a published source.

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8 July 2026 · 5 min read
Carbon

The Duplicate Invoice Problem In Carbon Accounting

A single electricity invoice entered twice can inflate annual Scope 2 substantially, and both entries look individually correct. Why source-level deduplication matters more than calculation accuracy.

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4 July 2026 · 6 min read
Carbon

Reporting Scope 3 Without Perfect Supplier Data

Scope 3 relies on estimation and always will. How to combine spend-based and activity-based methods, prioritise supplier engagement, and document estimates so they survive assurance.

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1 July 2026 · 6 min read
EPR

Extended Producer Responsibility: A Practical Guide For Producers

EPR makes producers financially responsible for products at end of life. Who counts as a producer, what registration involves, and why obligations attach per market and per waste stream.

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27 June 2026 · 6 min read
EPR

EPR In Germany: LUCID, WEEE And Battery Registration

Germany operates separate registers for packaging, electrical equipment and batteries. What each requires, how the registration numbers are used, and the sequence that avoids delisting.

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24 June 2026 · 6 min read
EPR

EPR In France: UIN, Eco-Organismes And Triman

France operates one of the broadest EPR regimes in Europe. How the unique identification number works, which streams are covered, and what the Triman labelling requirement means for packaging.

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20 June 2026 · 5 min read
EPR

EPR In Italy: Packaging Obligations And Environmental Labelling

Italy's packaging regime combines mandatory consortium membership with environmental labelling requirements that reach onto the pack itself. What producers and importers need in place.

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17 June 2026 · 6 min read
EPR

Eco-Modulation: When Product Design Changes Your EPR Fee

Eco-modulated EPR fees adjust according to recyclability, recycled content and design characteristics. How modulation criteria work, why they differ by market, and how to track the effect of design changes.

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13 June 2026 · 6 min read
EPR

Chain Of Custody: The Data Gap After Your Product Is Sold

Most producers lose visibility the moment a product ships. Why end-of-life custody data is becoming a compliance requirement rather than a sustainability nice-to-have, and how to start capturing it.

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10 June 2026 · 5 min read
EPR

What An EPR Registration Line Actually Costs

EPR pricing is opaque by convention. A breakdown of registration fees, scheme contributions, representative costs and software charges — and which of them should carry a vendor margin.

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6 June 2026 · 6 min read
Buying

Out Of CSRD Scope But Still Getting Data Requests

De-scoped suppliers still receive sustainability questionnaires from in-scope customers. What the voluntary SME standard covers, what you can reasonably decline, and how to answer once rather than fifty times.

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3 June 2026 · 5 min read
EPR

Building A Placed-On-Market Register That Actually Works

Every EPR declaration, eco-modulation calculation and passport requirement queries the same dataset. What a placed-on-market register must contain and the modelling mistakes that make it unusable.

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30 May 2026 · 6 min read
Buying

One Product Record, Three Regulations

Carbon accounting, EPR and the digital product passport draw on the same product, material and supplier data. What separate systems cost you, and what a shared record changes.

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27 May 2026 · 6 min read
Passport

The Battery Passport: What Applies From February 2027

The EU battery passport becomes mandatory on 18 February 2027 for EV, LMT and industrial batteries above 2 kWh. What it must contain, who it applies to, and why the timeline is tighter than it looks.

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23 May 2026 · 5 min read
Passport

GS1 Digital Link And QR Carriers For Product Passports

Digital product passports are accessed through a data carrier resolving to structured information. How GS1 Digital Link works, why identifiers must persist, and what to decide before printing anything.

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20 May 2026 · 5 min read
Passport

The Three-Tier Access Model In Digital Product Passports

Passport data is not uniformly public. How the three-tier access model works, what belongs in each tier, and why access control is a design requirement rather than a later addition.

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16 May 2026 · 5 min read
Passport

After Batteries: Which Products Get A Passport Next

The battery passport is first, not last. How the ecodesign framework extends passports to textiles, electronics and construction products, and what to build now so the second one is cheaper.

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13 May 2026 · 6 min read
Passport

The Bill Of Materials Gap Behind Every Product Passport

Passport requirements reach deeper into product composition than most BOMs record. Where the gaps typically are, why suppliers cannot always fill them, and how to close them before the deadline.

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9 May 2026 · 6 min read
Assurance

The Compliance Bug That Does Not Throw An Error

A fault in materiality logic silently suppressed mandatory emissions figures with no error raised. Why plausible wrong output is the dangerous failure mode, and what testing actually catches it.

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6 May 2026 · 5 min read
Assurance

Evidence Lineage: Proving Where A Number Came From

Assurance depends on reconstructing how a figure was derived. What a complete lineage chain contains, where chains typically break, and how to test yours before an auditor does.

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2 May 2026 · 6 min read
Buying

Build Or Buy: Compliance Data Systems

Compliance data looks buildable — until regulatory maintenance, taxonomy updates and assurance requirements arrive. An honest comparison of where each option genuinely wins.

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28 April 2026 · 6 min read
Buying

Twelve Questions To Ask A Compliance Software Vendor

Most compliance software demos look identical. Twelve specific questions about taxonomy, restatement, access control and fee transparency that reveal what a demo cannot.

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25 April 2026 · 5 min read
Buying

Why We Built The Boring Layer First

Unit normalization, factor mapping and evidence lineage demonstrate nothing and take months. They are also the reason every module built afterwards was quick, correct and cheap to extend.

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Roughly monthly. Regulatory changes that affect producers, and what we have learned building against them. No product announcements.