Sustainability Compliance: What This Year’s Reporting Taught Us and Why to Start Thinking About 2026
Each reporting season brings new expectations but also new chances to strengthen your systems, improve collaboration, and demonstrate leadership in sustainability.
This year’s sustainability reporting season has come and gone. Reporting portals are shut, numbers are submitted, and teams are decompressing. For many, this cycle of annual reporting still feels like a sprint, a burden, and a check-the-box process rather than a practice grounded in clarity and confidence that delivers value to the organization.
As major retailers strengthen their sustainability goals and pass those expectations down the supply chain, suppliers are under increasing pressure to provide accurate, verifiable data. Every year, reporting season reveals both the challenges and the opportunities within sustainability compliance.
Now, while the experience is fresh, is the perfect time to assess what worked, what didn’t, and how to make next year’s process more strategic, efficient, and valuable for your business.
Before you move on to everything else demanding your attention, take a moment and ask yourself: How did you feel submitting your sustainability reporting this year?
The honest reflections we hear across the industry sound like:
“We reported, but we’re not sure how we did.”
“Some answers were educated guesses.”
“We took it seriously but still felt unprepared.”
“The reporting season sneaks up and forces us to drop everything.”
These aren’t isolated comments. They reflect a broader industry shift. Sustainability compliance is no longer an optional or occasional request. It is rapidly becoming an expected component of doing business with major buyers, and expectations are only growing stronger.
Why are Sustainability Requirements and Pressure Increasing?
Consumers are driving retailer sustainability commitments. Retailers adopt targets to meet that demand. Those targets then cascade down the supply chain and translate directly into data that suppliers must provide.
In other words, retailer sustainability commitments become supplier compliance requirements. That’s why each reporting season may feel harder than the last. New retailer goals mean new data requests. We’re already seeing this with increasing focus on packaging types and volumes, energy usage, emissions, waste diversion, responsible sourcing, water stewardship, regenerative and climate-smart agriculture, and more.
Retailers aren’t just asking for data; they’re asking for defensible, verifiable information. And they are looking for suppliers who align with their priorities and are prepared to support those long-term sustainability commitments.
Want 2026 Reporting to Feel Different?
Most companies wait until fall to begin preparing. That’s exactly what makes the process overwhelming. Companies that reported with confidence this year weren’t scrambling weeks before the deadline. They started planning months earlier and addressed issues proactively while still in a position to make adjustments.
To allow for real improvement in 2026, start now while this season is still fresh in the mind:
Capture what worked and what didn’t
Document pain points and successes before they’re forgotten.
Identify what data was missing
This will show where you need to focus time and resources.
Clarify internal roles
Who owns which data from each department? Who approves it? Who enters it into the portal?
Don’t wait until next fall
Data collection, coordination, and verification all take time.
Treat sustainability compliance as part of your business strategy
Not as a once-a-year fire drill.
If reporting felt like a fire drill this year, that’s okay, but it’s a signal that the process needs more structure and a system. Without a system in place, next year will be the same.
Why the Produce Industry Turns to Measure to Improve
This year, the companies we supported still had work to do, it’s an intensive process, but they approached it with intention and structure rather than last-minute guesswork. They weren’t trying to just get through the reporting. They were able to stand behind what they submitted and find value in it.
But don’t just take our word for it. Direct client feedback included:
“THANK YOU, we feel so much more confident in our responses.”
“You made this so much more approachable for us.”
“Thank you for walking us through the portal and helping us prioritize what and where to start.”
“This is the first time we’ve actually understood what data we should collect and use for compliance reporting.”
“Their deep understanding of Walmart’s Project Gigaton Portal helped us realize we were doing more than we thought, especially in areas we weren’t even tracking.”
Our approach is rooted in how produce operations actually function. We help teams prioritize, interpret confusing survey questions, assign ownership, collect the correct data (not everything), prepare for verification, and align reporting with broader business strategy.
Guidance alone won’t get you there. Collaboration and partnership will. That’s what MTI brings.
Finding Your Competitive Advantage Through Sustainability Compliance
Retailers are evaluating more than what information you are reporting. They’re assessing how you are reporting it and how you are making progress year over year.
They are looking for:
Accuracy
Consistency
Demonstrated improvement over time
Alignment with their goals
Ability to verify and stand behind your submissions
Companies that treat sustainability compliance as strategic, not simply checking the box, will be positioned as more reliable, better aligned, and more prepared for evolving expectations.
If This Year Was Stressful, Next Year Doesn’t Have To Be
Right now is the best time to take control of your sustainability compliance approach, while everything is still fresh and before it gets lost behind everything else.
If you want 2026 to be the year you move from reactive to proactive, and the year you start building your competitive advantage, start now.
MTI is here to help make sustainability compliance:
Clear
Manageable
Less overwhelming
More strategic
And far more achievable
By shifting from a reactive mindset to a proactive one, MTI helps produce companies move beyond box-checking to create real value and competitive advantage. With the right strategy and support your 2026 reporting season can be less stressful, more strategic, and far more impactful. Measure to Improve is your trusted partner to help make that shift. Let’s build your sustainability compliance foundation together.
Learn more about our Sustainability Compliance Solution or contact us today at:
hello@measuretoimprovellc.com