Investing while the rules are still moving
Nowhere is this clearer than in climate and environmental regulation. Companies are being asked to spend real money on data systems, packaging and supplier engagement well before every detail of the rules they are preparing for has been settled.
CBAM is the obvious example. The EU's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive phase in 2026, and importers of covered goods now need reliable emissions figures from their producers alongside accurate customs classification and import data.
That sounds manageable until you try it. An importer will usually know the commodity code and customs value of the goods it brings in. What it may not have is the emissions data, because that information sits with a producer outside the EU. If the supplier cannot provide it, or will not, the importer bears the additional cost and may eventually have to ask whether the commercial relationship still works.
The UK adds another layer from 1 January 2027. The objective is familiar; the organisation is not. UK CBAM will operate as a direct charge reported to HMRC, rather than through the purchase and surrender of certificates, and the £50,000 registration threshold is not a simple annual calculation: businesses face both a forward-looking test based on expected imports over the next 30 days and a backward-looking test covering imports since the regime began and, in later years, the preceding 12 months. (HMRC guidance)
The product scope differs too. Electricity sits outside the UK system, and glass and ceramics will not be included at launch. A company importing into both markets should plan for two sets of rules, calculations and controls rather than stretching one process across both.
Some merging may come. The UK and the EU have agreed to work towards linking their emissions trading systems, which is intended to create the conditions for mutual CBAM exemptions, subject to legislation on both sides. But that link is not operational and no jurisdiction is currently exempt from UK CBAM on this basis, so the planning assumption for now has to be two separate regimes.
EUDR is the same challenge in a different form. From 30 December 2026, covered products placed on the EU market, sold within it or exported from it must meet the EU's deforestation-free requirements. The regulation applies to cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood, along with a range of derived products.
Compliance can require geolocation data, traceability records and evidence drawn from several tiers of the supply chain. Producers outside the EU are not directly caught by the regulation, but their EU customers will still come asking for the information they need to complete their own due diligence.
The timetable has already shifted more than once, and that is not a reason to wait. It simply leaves companies with a problematic choice: keep investing, slow the project down, or redesign the solution while waiting for greater certainty.
PPWR brings the same issue closer to the product
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) adds another layer. PPWR entered into force in February 2025 and generally applies from 12 August 2026, covering packaging whatever the material and wherever it comes from. It reaches composition, recyclability, waste prevention, recycled content, labelling and reuse, with some obligations applying from 12 August 2026 and others phased in over the years that follow. European Commission, Regulation (EU) 2025/40
That makes it more than a waste question. It touches product design, sourcing, logistics, marketing and access to the EU market itself.
Companies may have to make decisions before the full regulatory framework is in place. Packaging chosen today could remain in use for years, requiring businesses to anticipate future recyclability rules, material restrictions and labelling requirements. Lighter packaging may reduce costs but offers less protection in transit. Reusable transport packaging cuts waste but rewrites warehouse processes, reverse logistics and cleaning arrangements.
One requirement is already approaching. From 12 August 2026, food-contact packaging containing PFAS at or above PPWR limits cannot be placed on the EU market. Importers must be able to demonstrate compliance through reliable documentation from packaging suppliers.
This points to a wider change. Customs and product compliance can no longer be managed independently. Commodity codes, origin and customs value still matter, but companies increasingly need material composition data, emissions information, supplier traceability and compliance evidence to sit alongside them.
Sanctions risk is moving beyond the direct customer
Environmental rules are not the only source of uncertainty. Sanctions and export controlscan change the risk profile of an established trade route in a matter of weeks.
Screening the direct customer and the destination country used to be enough. It no longer is. The questions now run to the ultimate end user, the intermediaries, the payment route and the odds of re-export.
The EU's 20th sanctions package shows what that means in practice. In April 2026 the EU activated its anti-circumvention tool for the first time, banning exports of certain CNC machines and radios to Kyrgyzstan after evidence of rising re-exports to Russia. The same package reached entities and trade routes in China, the UAE, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Türkiye and Hong Kong. (Council of the EU)
The message is uncomfortable. Your customer may not be sanctioned, and their country may not be either, and the transaction can still create exposure if the goods, payments or services connect to a prohibited end user or a likely re-export.
From advance declarations to continuous visibility
Advance supply-chain data is no longer a coming requirement — it is routine. The EU's Import Control System 2 has covered every transport mode since its final rollout closed in September 2025, and safety and security information must now reach customs before the goods do.
What comes next is a bigger shift. Under the Union Customs Code reform politically agreed by the Council and Parliament on 26 March 2026, an EU Customs Data Hub will gradually become the main point of contact between traders and customs. Instead of filing similar information into a dozen national systems, businesses would submit once into a single EU environment and customs would gain a near-real-time view across goods, traders and supply chains. The Hub opens for e-commerce on 1 July 2028, becomes voluntary for everyone else in March 2031, and mandatory by 1 March 2034.
The reform also introduces a new tier of highly transparent businesses: Trust and Check traders. Qualifying means meeting strict criteria, reporting in detail on the movement and compliance of goods, and giving customs access to the relevant electronic systems. In return: fewer interventions, simpler temporary storage and transit, and for the most trusted release of goods with no active customs decision at all.
This is not the end of AEO. The existing framework is expected to run in parallel, particularly for businesses that cannot meet the tougher Trust and Check conditions. Read it as an additional, higher rung rather than a replacement.
The direction is settled; the operating detail is not. At the Commission's implementation dialogue on 8 June 2026, industry was still asking the basic questions what data will actually be required, how authorities will access company systems, and what Trust and Check really buys you over AEO. Smaller traders and customs intermediaries pressed hardest.
That is the uncertainty tax in another form. Companies can see that customs is moving towards continuous data sharing. What they cannot calculate is how far their systems, governance and operating model will have to move with it.
How uncertainty changes behaviour
The biggest effect of these policies shows up long before a customs problem exists in decisions taken quietly, months ahead. A company brings imports forward because it expects a tariff rise. Another holds extra stock because it isn't sure the route or the supplier will still be there. A manufacturer adds a second source knowing it costs more. A warehouse investment slips a year until market access, carbon costs and sanctions look clearer.
Compliance gets duplicated too. The EU, UK and US often chase the same objective through separate thresholds, data demands and enforcement styles, so one global process rarely survives contact with all three.
None of this is free. Inventory ties up working capital. Split volumes weaken purchasing power. New sites need capital and management attention. New routes bring fresh origin and circumvention risk. That is the uncertainty tax paid in stock, delayed investment, duplicated systems and deals never done.
Planning for more than one outcome
Nobody forecasts trade policy reliably, and waiting for certainty is itself a decision. The workable middle is preparing for a handful of credible outcomes. What if the exemption lapses? Can you actually obtain the packaging and emissions data the EU will demand? How fast could you switch supplier if sanctions risk moves?
Three things help:
Map exposure by product, supplier, origin, destination and route.
Build tariff, sanctions and compliance scenarios into sourcing and pricing decisions.
Treat classification, origin, emissions, packaging and supplier information as one connected data set, not five separate filings.
Customs still comes down to moving goods across a border. But the decisions wrapped around those movements now run through procurement, product design, finance and the investment case itself.
The companies that come through this won't be the ones that predict every regulation right.
They'll be the ones still trading on the morning when the call turns out wrong.
