Sedex has unveiled a free Regulatory Navigator as companies across global supply chains face a fast-shifting patchwork of due-diligence, reporting and forced-labour rules.
Introduced on 25 August 2026, the self-service tool asks users a short set of questions about their headquarters, revenue, workforce, operating markets and import activity before giving an indicative view of which major regulations may apply. Sedex says the navigator is intended to help businesses make a firs...
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t assessment rather than replace formal legal advice.
The platform screens companies against eight regimes, including the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, the EU Forced Labour Regulation, Canada’s Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and Australia’s Modern Slavery Act. Sedex says the content reflects the latest changes under the EU’s Omnibus Simplification Package I, which has altered the scope and timing of the CSDDD and CSRD.
The launch reflects how compliance has become more than a legal checklist. For many businesses, especially those in textiles and apparel, the challenge now lies in assembling supplier maps, identifying risks across multiple tiers, collecting evidence, investigating breaches and documenting corrective action in a way that can stand up to scrutiny from regulators and customers.
Sedex has spent years building a business around that shift. In early 2026, the company said more than 100,000 businesses were using its platform, across more than 180 countries, and that it supported over 120,000 supply-chain worksites. It also said it had carried out more than 450,000 SMETA site audits over its 21-year history. Those figures underline the scale of demand for tools that can connect procurement, sustainability and compliance teams with supplier data in a single system.
That matters for exporters as much as for the companies directly covered by law. Even factories that fall outside the formal thresholds for a particular regulation are increasingly being asked by customers for the same information regulated buyers need to gather. As a result, the practical burden is spreading down the chain, with suppliers expected to provide labour, environmental, traceability and due-diligence data quickly and reliably.
Sedex’s broader pitch is that compliance is moving from periodic audits towards continuous data management. The company has also recently been named a Representative Vendor in Gartner’s 2026 Market Guide for Sustainable Procurement Applications, a further sign that sustainable procurement and supply-chain risk management remain a major focus for large organisations even as trade policy, regulation and budgets become more difficult to navigate.
For now, the Regulatory Navigator is being presented as a way to bring some order to that complexity. Its value lies not in making the law simpler, but in helping companies understand sooner which obligations, deadlines and disclosure duties are most likely to shape the way they buy, source and report.
Source: Noah Wire Services
