Research worth reading.

Compliance as a competitive advantage

How getting EU product compliance right has become a growth lever — and how to turn it into one.

Product compliance has shifted from a back-office obligation to a condition of market access: retailers and online marketplaces now check it before they list you, and remove what does not pass. This white paper shows why the same forces also make compliance a competitive advantage — faster speed-to-shelf, a measurable consumer trust premium, and resilience against recalls and delistings — and gives brand owners a maturity model and a five-step playbook to get there.

• Why compliance moved from cost centre to gatekeeper
• The real cost of an afterthought: delistings, recalls, lost time
• Four advantages: market access, a trust premium, resilience, first-mover readiness
• The Compliance Advantage Maturity Model + a practical playbook

Backed by PwC, Simon-Kucher, the European Commission (Safety Gate), Amazon and EUR-Lex (11 cited sources).

Implementing a compliance strategy

From the boardroom decision to daily operations — a practical playbook with models and templates.

Compliance becomes durable only when it is built into how a company decides, staffs, structures its data and operates day-to-day — buying a tool alone does not fix it. This practical playbook walks through the five stages of implementation (leadership, business, people, data and operations), grounded in the ISO 37301 compliance-management-system model and the IIA Three Lines Model. It includes models to copy and templates to fill in — a governance model, a compliance data model, a continuous-compliance loop, a maturity model, a 90-day roadmap, a RACI matrix, a KPI scorecard and more.

• The five-stage implementation arc: leadership → business → people → data → operations
• Governance with the IIA Three Lines Model and ISO 37301
• A compliance data model and a continuous-compliance (PDCA) loop
• Ready-to-use templates: policy, business case, RACI, product data, supplier request, roadmap, KPIs, register

Grounded in ISO 37301:2021, the IIA Three Lines Model (2020), GPSR and ESPR.

Companion toolkit — every template from this paper as a ready-to-use Excel workbook (fill manually or auto-sync from Conphora).

How to handle product recalls in the EU

A practical, end-to-end playbook for running a compliant product recall — and documenting every step.

When a product turns out to be unsafe, what you do next is judged on speed, proportionality and documentation. This white paper walks through the full recall lifecycle — detect, assess, decide, notify, communicate, execute, monitor and close out — in the EU context of the GPSR and the EU Safety Gate. It turns the process into an eight-phase, task-by-task workflow with worked examples, the required contents of a recall notice, and how to measure recovery — then shows how to run and automatically document the whole thing in Conphora's recall workspace.

• The eight-phase recall lifecycle, task by task, with worked examples
• What a recall notice must contain, and which channels reach owners
• Notifying the authority (Safety Business Gateway) and the supply chain
• Measuring recovery rate and running a documented close-out
• How to run and auto-document the whole recall in Conphora

Grounded in GPSR (EU) 2023/988, the EU Safety Gate, and Conphora's recall framework.

Product compliance: your key to the EU market

A field guide for non-EU suppliers and producers shipping goods into the EU — arrive retailer-ready and stay there.

The EU regulates the product, not the seller's location — so a factory in Shenzhen, a brand in Istanbul or a maker in Ohio meets exactly the same bar as a company in Hamburg, and since the GPSR that bar is enforced by the marketplaces and customs you depend on. This white paper is the map for getting in and staying in: why compliance is now the condition of market access, the EU responsible-person requirement most sellers overlook, who is accountable for what across the chain, the full compliance stack you must satisfy, what each sales channel demands, and a step-by-step playbook to arrive retailer-ready.

• Why "just ship it" no longer works — GPSR, Safety Gate and marketplace checks
• The EU responsible-person requirement, and three ways to fill it
• A responsibility matrix: manufacturer, importer, authorised rep, marketplace
• The compliance stack — rules, technical file, CE, labelling, REACH/RoHS, EPR/WEEE
• Channel-by-channel demands and an eight-step route-to-market playbook

Grounded in GPSR (EU) 2023/988, the Market Surveillance Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, REACH/RoHS, ESPR and EUR-Lex.

How to avoid greenwashing

A seller's guide to environmental claims you can stand behind — and how to catch the ones you can't.

Every environmental claim a brand publishes is now a testable promise: under the EU's Empowering Consumers Directive vague claims like "eco-friendly" or "climate neutral" are becoming unlawful, marketplaces remove unproven on-page claims, and competitors and NGOs file complaints. This white paper is the seller's playbook — what counts as greenwashing, why the rules just tightened, what actually happens if you're accused, and the "say it and prove it" method for claims that survive scrutiny — then shows how the Conphora GreenWashing Check crawls your own site, flags risky claims, scores the risk and tells you what to correct.

• A taxonomy of greenwashing traps, with before/after claim rewrites
• Why generic green claims are becoming unlawful — the key EU dates
• The real implications: fines, delisting, complaints, lost trust
• The "say it and prove it" test every claim must pass
• How the GreenWashing Check finds, scores and guides fixes for risky claims

Grounded in Directive (EU) 2024/825, the UCPD 2005/29/EC, the proposed Green Claims Directive, Danish markedsføringsloven and ISO 14021.