Building a roadmap to smarter compliance

Where our previous article explored the fragmented present and the vision for an integrated EHS future, this article focuses on how organizations actually get there. During Enhesa’s webinar, Modernizing IT for smarter compliance & sustainability, panelists outlined practical, realistic steps companies can take — and the real-world challenges they must anticipate — when modernizing their compliance and sustainability tech stack.

In this article, we’ve summarized the five steps a business should take, as recommended by our expert panel, for a concise guide to creating the roadmap that will fit your company’s needs.

Why is a roadmap necessary (and difficult)?

Transforming an EHS and sustainability tech stack is not a one-off project. It touches nearly every corner of the business — from frontline workers who collect data to specialists who interpret it, and to executives who rely on it for decisions.

Without a clear roadmap, organizations often fall into a cycle of reactive fixes — patching gaps, bolting on new tools, or relying on tribal knowledge — rather than building a cohesive, long-term strategy. A roadmap provides the clarity needed to identify gaps and opportunities, prioritize investments, sequence transformation in manageable phases, and align teams behind a shared vision of success.

“Compliance isn’t a check-the-box exercise — it’s a programmatic change that requires collaboration across departments, buy-in at all levels, and increased resources.”

— Jillian Stacy, SVP for Sustainable Chemistry and Global Expert Services, Enhesa

But even with a plan, the journey is rarely straightforward. Companies must navigate shifting regulatory landscapes, resource constraints, organizational changes, and unexpected operational disruptions. Modernization requires not just direction, but resilience and the ability to adjust timelines, shift priorities, or rethink solutions as conditions evolve. This is why adaptability is such a critical characteristic of successful EHS transformation.

The conclusion is clear: organizations that treat modernization as a dynamic, evolving journey rather than a rigid checklist are far better equipped to reach their long-term destination.

“It’s not a straight road from A to B. There are junctions, slip roads, and the odd traffic jam… something can derail your progress at any time.”

— Michelle Turner, Technical Director, Arcadis

Step 1: Quantify the cost of doing nothing

Before setting off on a transformation journey like EHS modernization, it’s important to have a frank and unfiltered view of the current situation, including anticipating where that situation may lead you if you do nothing. Companies must start by understanding the risks and costs of the status quo, so the benefits and opportunities of change can really be appreciated.

Here’s just a handful of the most common areas that the status quo prevents from enhancing:

• Inefficiency and manual work
• Uncertainty in data quality
• Resource drain caused by outdated systems
• Missed opportunities from poor performance visibility
• Regulatory exposures and potential non-compliance

“Efficiency, uncertainties, opportunity cost — all of these help justify the work this transformation will take.”

— Connie Prostko-Bell, Sustainability & Resilience Principal, Cority

Step 2: Define near-, mid-, and long-term goals

A phased approach prevents overwhelm and ensures meaningful progress.

Instead of trying to modernize every process and system at once, organizations should sequence their transformation into clear stages that build on one another — stabilizing the foundation before adding more advanced capabilities. This helps teams stay focused, reduces change fatigue, and creates early wins that build confidence and momentum across the organization.

It’s also important for businesses to avoid the seduction and danger of “feature overload” — novelty or the prospect of more features faster may be tantalizing, but sticking to the realistic goals set out in a well-thought-out plan will offer continually improving and consistent results.

“You may think your gold standard is here, and a vendor comes in offering everything under the sun… but that wasn’t on your roadmap. Stick to what you intended to do.”

— Michelle Turner

Step 3: Align the right people at every level

Frontline engagement is a critical aspect in any transformation journey. Panelists unanimously agreed: transformation fails without people — and that means people at every level of the organization:

• Frontline workers must be heard
• Subject matter experts must shape requirements
• Leadership must sponsor and resource the process
• Cross-functional partners (legal, finance, R&D, sustainability) must participate

Turner summed this up succinctly:

“Never underestimate how someone feels when they’re asked for input. They’re much more likely to follow a system they’ve been involved in developing.”

But the reality of large organizations must also be taken into account when attempting to achieve true modernization, which requires both horizontal and vertical involvement. It’s important to get the insights and perspectives of everyone involved or impacted in your modernization efforts, but decision by committee can be the wall that halts a project before it gets started.

To create balance, panelists recommended defining who the decision-makers are and ensuring they’re ready to make final decisions when they need to be made.An

Step 4: Transparency with vendors and internally

Selecting the right technology, content, and services partners is one of the most influential decisions in the modernization journey, yet it’s often approached with too little clarity and too many assumptions. Before engaging vendors, organizations must first align internally on what they actually need:

• The problems they’re trying to solve
• The gaps in their current systems
• Their integration requirements
• Budget realities
• The degree of change they’re prepared to support

Without this internal alignment, RFP processes become slow, reactive, and unfocused — and the resulting solutions rarely meet long-term needs.

Transparency also accelerates evaluation. When companies clearly articulate their goals, constraints, existing technologies, and success criteria, vendors can tailor demonstrations and proposals that directly address the organization’s reality. This reduces wasted time, avoids “checkbox demos,” and helps teams compare solutions on substance rather than marketing.

Too many companies cast an overly wide net, evaluating a dozen or more platforms at once. But as the panel emphasized, breadth rarely produces better decisions — depth does. A short, thoughtfully selected list of potential partners enables teams to ask deeper questions, explore real use cases, and understand how each solution would function within their operational context.

Step 5: Make space for cultural and behavioral change

Modern technology alone won’t change how people work. Lasting improvement requires clear communication, accessible training, and reinforcement of safe behaviors across diverse sites and cultures. Organizations should focus on helping employees understand why processes matter, not just what the rules are. When people feel included and informed, adoption rises — and so does impact.

Ways to effect lasting cultural and behavioral change

• Accessible training
• Clear expectations
• Behavioral reinforcement
• Culturally aware communication
• Local-language materials

The role of AI: Practical, not futuristic

The idealization of AI and what it can be used for puts companies at risk of expecting a “silver bullet” that, in reality, has its limitations. That isn’t to say AI can’t deliver meaningful value, the panelists emphasized — it absolutely can — but only when applied to the right kinds of tasks. Organizations should view AI as an efficiency multiplier, not a substitute for expertise: a tool that accelerates workflows, reduces manual effort, and improves data quality so human specialists can focus on interpretation and decision-making.

As Jillian Stacy, put it:

“Let AI gather information so experts can spend more time making decisions instead of collecting data.”

Key AI opportunities today

• Automating manual entry
• Cleansing and validating data
• Extracting insights from large datasets
• Surfacing regulatory changes

Used thoughtfully, these capabilities can remove administrative burden, reduce error rates, and shorten the time it takes to turn raw information into usable intelligence. But unlocking this value requires strong data foundations, clear governance, and expert oversight to ensure AI outputs are accurate and meaningful. The organizations seeing the most success are those that pair AI with skilled reviewers who can contextualize results and make informed decisions.

Bringing it all together

Modernizing the EHS and sustainability tech stack is a long-term transformation that touches data, culture, processes, and people. Companies that approach it with phased planning, realistic expectations, and strong engagement will reap benefits far beyond compliance — including better performance, improved resilience, and greater strategic clarity.

“There will be many points in between… but the goal is getting from your starting point to your finish point, wherever that is for your organization.”

— Michelle Turner