Do the regulations still apply?

As of July 2026, yes, though the scope narrowed. The EU Omnibus package reduced the number of companies covered by CSRD and CSDDD, but US manufacturers with EU operations or EU-bound exports can still face obligations under CBAM and member-state rules. CSDDD now reaches only the very largest companies — 5,000-plus employees and €1.5 billion-plus turnover — and not until 2029, so most manufacturers feel it indirectly, if at all. Your scope considerations turn on your specific footprint.

The practical read for manufacturers is that the requirement did not disappear. It moved. That’s because customers and investors continue to ask for sustainability data independent of any mandate. And it’s why teams that already have built the underlying inventory are not scrambling when the next framework firms up. They use the same data to cut cost and de-risk suppliers now. That is the difference between carrying the regulation as a burden and using it as leverage.

Waiting reduces short-term effort but increases deadline risk. Regulatory timelines can firm up faster than data infrastructure can be built — often a matter of months — which means that teams that wait can find themselves without enough runway to prepare for data requirements. A well-built data foundation will stay stable even when specific rules shift.

The reason waiting rarely pays off: the same data infrastructure that supports compliance is what surfaces operational and financial value [LINK: cluster 3 — cost, fit and trust] (think: cost savings, supplier risk, efficiency decisions). A clear data inventory earns its keep regardless of where the rules land. Also true: when one data requirement drops off, another tends to replace it.

Building the foundation early means you are using the investment now instead of racing a deadline later.

Not as a legal requirement, but often as a practical one. Even out-of-scope companies are increasingly receiving data requests from customers and investors, and voluntary standards such as VSME let companies align in a lighter-weight way. Being out of scope today also does not guarantee staying out as thresholds change.

For manufacturers, this overlap matters: the data behind one framework tends to feed the next, so building even a light data foundation now means you are positioned if scope shifts back. You’ll find too that the same data often does double duty operationally — revealing supplier risk, energy cost, efficiency — so it is rarely wasted effort even absent a mandate.

For many companies the CSRD scope narrowed under the 2026 Omnibus changes, raising size thresholds and phasing some companies out or back. Whether it applies now depends on your size, EU presence and the current thresholds. It has not been repealed. The framework remains, with a smaller initial population.

The recurring mistake is treating CSRD as either a broad mandate everyone must meet or a dead letter. It is neither. For manufacturers the safer posture is to track where your specific entity sits against the current thresholds and keep the underlying ESRS E1 data ready, because scope and timing here have moved more than once.

A platform that keeps the framework logic current means the answer updates as the rules do.

Not necessarily, but single-framework scope is often temporary. The underlying data requirements across major frameworks overlap heavily, so companies in scope for one today are frequently pulled into others as thresholds and timelines shift. The real question is whether you are solving for one deadline or the recurring cycle.

For manufacturers the overlap is the point. The inventory you build for one framework is largely the same one the next requires, and it is the same data that surfaces operational value: cost, supplier risk, efficiency. Scoping narrowly to a single framework can mean rebuilding when the second arrives.

A platform that covers CSRD, IFRS S1/S2 [LINK], CBAM, CSDDD and EUDR in one place with consistent methodology is a safe way to build a strong foundation for the future.