Why Smart Companies Aren't Pausing Sustainability Work

Authors: Lise Laurin, CEO & Tess Konnovitch, Scientific Marketing Manager

We've Been Here Before

Sustainability work has never moved in a straight line and today's uncertainty is real. Several major sustainability reporting regulations are paused, delayed, or under legal challenge. Political headwinds, regulatory whiplash, and economic downturns make for higher uncertainty and risk. In such a challenging time it can be tempting to reduce climate related expenses – but that creates its own risk.

The risk is slowing your own momentum while your competitors, suppliers, and key customers continue theirs. Slowed/stopped programs often result in personnel and budget changes, leading to short and long term reduced organization capabilities and can require a larger investment to restart the programs than what was needed to sustain the efforts. Organizations that keep investing — that keep measuring, improving and understanding their own environmental footprint — emerge out of these uncertain times with a real competitive advantage.

At EarthShift Global, we've been doing this work for over 25 years and we’ve seen, time and time again, that organizations who don't stop when the headlines get complicated are the ones who build sustained competitive advantages related to their sustainability efforts.

The Case for Continuing

There's a tempting logic to the pause-and-wait approach: if the regulations aren't finalized, why invest now? Why do the hard work of measuring Scope 3 emissions or conducting a full LCA when the rules might change?

We push back on that logic — hard.

1. Regulations Will Come. Data Infrastructure Takes Time to Build.

The regulatory direction — across the US, EU, Canada, Mexico, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Australia — is unmistakably toward greater transparency and accountability. The specific rules may shift. The timelines may slip. But the trajectory is clear, and it is global. Companies that wait until the rules are finalized to start collecting data will find themselves in a scramble — trying to backfill years of emissions history or product-level environmental data on a deadline.

Data infrastructure takes time to build. The companies that start now will be ready. The ones that wait will be paying a premium to catch up — under pressure.

2. Your Customers Aren't Waiting

While regulators debate, your customers — particularly large enterprise buyers, European companies, and increasingly Asian multinationals — are already asking questions. Supply chain due diligence requirements, procurement policies, and corporate sustainability commitments are driving demand for environmental data up and down the value chain, regardless of what any single regulator does.

If you can't answer those questions with real data, someone else will. This is a business risk that doesn't pause along with the regulations.

3. LCA Gives You More Than Compliance Data

This is the piece that often gets lost in the compliance conversation: the real value of life cycle assessment is not what it does for your regulatory filing. It's what it does for your business.

A well-executed LCA tells you where your environmental impacts — and your costs — actually come from. It surfaces inefficiencies. It identifies tradeoffs. It gives you the data to make better product decisions, have better supplier conversations, and tell a more credible story to customers, investors, and employees.

Companies that approach LCA as a compliance checkbox miss most of the value. The ones that approach it as a business intelligence tool find that it pays for itself — in avoided costs, improved products, and stronger relationships across the value chain.

4. Uncertainty Is Precisely When Data Matters Most

When the regulatory landscape is unclear, having your own solid, science-based data on your environmental performance is a strategic asset. It means you're not dependent on external frameworks to understand your own footprint. It means you can respond quickly when regulators try to push in the wrong direction. Here’s a concrete example. When the European Union rolled out the REACH directive, the electronics industry was forced to phase out lead. The effort to do so cost the industry billions of dollars (Intel alone said it spent over a billion getting lead out.) Yet an LCA showed that the impacts of the replacements were no better and, in some areas, worse than the lead they replaced. Having the LCA data up front gives you leverage to support better solutions. And it means you're making business decisions based on real information rather than estimates and assumptions.

We often say: you can't manage what you don't measure. In an uncertain environment, measurement is not a compliance exercise. It is a risk management strategy.

A Note From Our CEO

"Is regulation mandatory for progress in sustainability?" That's a question I've been asked — and been asking — for a long time.

North America is the fastest growing market for LCA after Asia. And yet, there is very little regulation in North America that directly requires it. So, what's driving the growth? In my experience, it's not fear of penalties. It's the realization — sometimes gradual, sometimes sudden — that this work makes products better. A major driver for LCA in the US has been the LEED certification program for buildings. While some government agencies require some level of building certification, the program is completely voluntary, yet has driven huge change in the building industry. Why? Because greener buildings are better buildings.

At a corporate level, LCA uncovers areas of high cost. High greenhouse gas emissions often signal high energy consumption, and energy costs money. The LCA process also shows employees that a company cares about more than the bottom line — and that matters for retention and talent. LCA actually makes companies better, too. Companies begin to push for better data up their supply chains not because a regulator told them to, but because they see the opportunity for lower costs and, ultimately, better suppliers.

I've seen this play out with companies ranging from household names to small manufacturers. The ones who treat sustainability as a strategic lens — rather than a reporting burden — are the ones who find that it makes their products better, their operations leaner, and their relationships stronger.

The regulations will catch up. They always do. The question is whether you'll be ready when they do — or still scrambling to understand your own footprint for the first time."

What This Looks Like in Practice

For sustainability managers navigating this moment, here's how we recommend thinking about it:

• Don't stop. Even if a specific reporting deadline has been delayed, the underlying data work is still valuable. Keep building.
• Prioritize understanding over compliance. Use this time — when the pressure is slightly lower — to build genuine insight into your footprint, not just a defensible number for a regulator.
• Start with your highest-impact areas. A full LCA across your entire portfolio isn't where most companies start. A targeted assessment of your highest-value, highest-cost products can deliver outsized insight.
• Use the data to have better conversations. With suppliers. With customers. With leadership. Real data changes the nature of those conversations.
• Document your methodology. When regulations do arrive, having a well-documented, scientifically rigorous approach to your environmental data will make adapting to a specific regulation faster and less costly.

The Bottom Line

Sustainability regulations are uncertain. The business case for understanding your environmental footprint is not.

The companies that will come out of this period of regulatory uncertainty strongest are the ones who used the time wisely — building data infrastructure, deepening supplier relationships, improving products, and developing the internal capabilities to turn environmental insight into business value.

That's not optimism. That's 25 years of watching this play out.

If you're not sure where to start — or how to make the case internally for continuing this work — we're here to help. EarthShift Global has conducted ISO-compliant life cycle assessments and greenhouse gas assessments to ISO and the GHG protocol for companies across food, agriculture, and consumer goods for over 25 years. If you're ready to move beyond estimates and build real environmental intelligence into your business, book a free 30-minute consultation.

About the Authors

Lise Laurin is the CEO and founder of EarthShift Global, a leading sustainability consulting firm specializing in life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental intelligence for companies across the food, agriculture, and consumer goods sectors. With over 25 years of experience in environmental science and business strategy, Lise has guided organizations through multiple waves of regulatory change — helping them build competitive advantages through robust sustainability practices rather than reactive compliance. An ACLCA-accredited Life Cycle Assessment Certified Professional, Lise advanced the field through the LCA Roadmap initiative, board service with the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, and the 2017 Rita Schenck Lifetime Individual LCA Leadership Award. She holds a BS in Physics from Yale University.
 

Tess Konnovitch is the Scientific Marketing Manager at EarthShift Global, where she bridges the gap between rigorous environmental science and clear business communication. She joined EarthShift Global in 2022 as a Data Visualization Specialist and was promoted into marketing leadership, blending scientific rigor, visual design, and clear messaging to ensure complex sustainability analyses resonate with decision-makers. Tess is also a course instructor at EarthShift Global and has spoken on LCA communication and data visualization at ACLCA, ISSST, and the LCA Institute. She holds a B.S. in Environmental Science and Biology and an M.S. in Computational Biology, and brings a background that bridges ecology, quantitative analysis, and science communication.