Horizon Scanning: Moving From Restricted Lists to Regulatory Intelligence

From Canada and the U.S. to Australia and China, regulators increasingly want detailed information about hazards, uses, exposures, and facilities before deciding what chemicals require greater scrutiny. For companies, knowing whether a substance appears on a regulatory list may no longer be enough.

For decades, one of the foundations of chemical compliance has been relatively straightforward: Identify the substances in a product, compare them against applicable regulatory lists, and determine whether restrictions, reporting requirements, or other obligations apply. That model is not disappearing, but it is becoming increasingly inadequate on its own.

“Most regulatory actions around chemicals have been focused on substances that are manufactured or imported. This is understandable, as these will be the chemicals used in the highest quantities and that are the easiest to identify and apply control measures to,” said Dr. Neil Hunt, principal at Yordas Group by 3E.

“However, they are not the only chemical species that humans and the environment are exposed to … Degradation products, both physical degradation (microplastics) and chemical (6-PPD quinone, PFAS released during waste treatment of fluorinated polymers), have been the focus of some attention recently. Understanding the release, exposure, hazard, and even their identity is much more difficult than for intentionally manufactured substances. Ongoing actions around the examples given will indicate how regulators plan to use regulatory measures designed for intentionally manufactured chemicals on these incidental chemical pollutants,” Hunt added.

As Hunt pointed out, a series of recent developments across major chemical markets points toward a regulatory system that places greater value on information explaining not simply what a chemical is, but how much of it is present, how it is used, where it is used, who might encounter it, what happens when it is combined with other chemicals, and how exposure or environmental releases could occur.

“EU REACH requires that registrations [for] hazardous substances [over] 10 tonnes include risk and exposure assessments as part of a chemical safety assessment,” said Hunt. “The environmental part of this assessment requires information on the quantity of a substance used for each use in the substance's life cycle within the EU. This has required registrants to communicate through their supply chain to get information on uses that they themselves do not undertake.”

According to Hunt, regulators use this information to prioritize their regulatory actions, with substances used in large quantities for widespread, dispersive uses receiving the quickest regulatory attention if the substance's hazards trigger such actions.

Canada provides an unusually timely example of a similar approach with its Plan of Priorities for chemicals management. On August 29, 2026, the government published two mandatory information-gathering notices under Section 71 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) covering 200 substances. Phase 1 covers 184 substances, while Phase 2 covers another 16 substances. The government is seeking information from Canadian manufacturers, importers, and users about the substances’ commercial status, uses, and facilities, including information related to releases.

The information is intended to support decisions about prioritization, risk assessment, and, where necessary, risk management. In other words, Canada is gathering information that could help determine what happens next.

Canada’s initiative is part of a broader international trend. Across several major chemical markets, regulators increasingly want information that provides context around a substance - hazard, use, volume, exposure, facility, and release data - before deciding what regulatory action should come next.

“Global chemical regulations are experiencing a shift,” confirmed Tan Sun, a senior regulatory consultant with Yordas Group by 3E. “Traditional monitoring strategies built on monitoring restricted-substance lists are increasingly reactive, leaving companies vulnerable to regulatory disruptions.”

Regulatory authorities across the U.S. and Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are leveraging databases established over the past decade to identify high-risk chemicals throughout their life cycles, said Tan. A driver of this shift is the growing recognition of nonintentionally generated substances, transformation and degradation products such as microplastics, and persistent toxic contaminants such as PFAS and endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).

Australia is strengthening high-hazard screening used to determine regulatory pathways for chemical introductions. China has replaced a filing pathway for certain new chemicals with premarket registration requirements. Meanwhile, other regulatory systems increasingly demonstrate how hazard, use, exposure, and conditions-of-use information can help determine what chemicals receive additional scrutiny.

The systems are different, and the regulatory stages are different, but together they point toward an important shift in chemical management. The compliance question is increasingly moving beyond “Is this chemical on a list?” to “What do we know about this chemical, how it is being used, and who or what could be exposed?”

Canada: What Happens After the Chemical Is Sold

Section 71 itself is not new. CEPA gives the Canadian government authority to require companies to provide information needed for prioritization, risk assessment, and risk management. That can include scientific and commercial information about substances.

What makes the latest exercise important for horizon scanning is the kind of information companies may need to locate across their organizations and supply chains. Canadian guidance makes it clear that companies subject to the notices are expected to provide information they possess or can reasonably be expected to access. Manufacturers, for example, may be expected to know quantities and concentrations, while importers may need to consult safety data sheets, product data sheets, and import records. The government also expects companies to make reasonable efforts to obtain missing information from suppliers and customers.

That makes information gathering much more expansive than a regulatory-affairs exercise. The necessary data may reside with procurement, product stewardship, EHS teams, individual facilities, suppliers, customers, or other parts of the organization. A company may know that it purchases a particular substance but have considerably more difficulty determining every product containing it, quantities imported into Canada, concentrations, uses, and activities at individual facilities.

The consequences of missing information can also extend beyond an incomplete submission. Canadian guidance notes that where relevant information is absent, regulators may use conservative assumptions in risk assessment and risk management decision-making.

The distinction is important. Canada’s Section 71 exercise does not itself restrict these 200 substances. It helps regulators determine what regulatory attention may be warranted. The information requirement therefore sits upstream of a potential future restriction.

Australia: Uses Hazard Information to Determine Regulatory Lane

Australia offers a different version of the same trend. Effective September 1, 2026, the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS) updated its Industrial Chemicals Categorisation Guidelines and expanded its list of chemicals with high hazards for categorization. The update adds 293 entries and changes 122 existing entries.

The significance isn’t simply that Australia has made a list longer. AICIS uses hazard information as part of the process for determining how a new chemical introduction should be categorized. The agency says chemicals appearing on its high-hazard list are known to have higher hazards and are unsuitable for introduction through a lower-risk category. Instead, AICIS should assess the potential risks before those chemicals are introduced into Australia.

That changes the role a chemical list plays. Instead of functioning primarily as a catalog of substances that already are restricted, the list becomes a regulatory gatekeeper. Hazard information can affect the pathway a chemical must follow before market introduction.

Other information matters as well. Australia’s categorization framework recognizes that each chemical introduction is unique because factors such as how the chemical is used, who uses or has access to it, and its concentration can differ from one introduction to another.

For product stewardship teams, that means knowing a chemical’s identity is only the starting point. Hazard characteristics, concentration, intended use, exposure, and other information can help determine the regulatory route.

China Moves Information Requirement Before Market Entry

China provides an even clearer example of regulation moving upstream.

Beginning August 15, 2026, China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) stopped accepting the previous environmental management filing mechanism for new chemical substances. Companies whose substances previously qualified for that process instead must submit an environmental management registration application before manufacture or import. Applicants must also provide supporting documentation and information they already possess about the new substance’s environmental and health hazard characteristics and environmental risks. MEE will process those applications in accordance with its simplified registration procedure and timeline.

That means a company’s ability to assemble the necessary regulatory information can become part of the market-entry process itself rather than a compliance obligation that arises only after commercialization. “A common thread across both U.S. TSCA and China REACH is that a completed registration does not guarantee permanent market access,” said Sun.

He added that regulators also impose continuing obligations to report new information after a substance enters commerce:

• China’s Measures for Environmental Management Registration of New Chemical Substances (Article 42) require researchers, manufacturers, importers, and processors or users that discover new environmental or health hazard characteristics or environmental risks associated with a new chemical substance to promptly report that information to MEE. The ministry also can require additional environmental or health hazard and environmental exposure information where environmental risks may be increasing.
• U.S. TSCA Section 8(e) requires manufacturers, processors, and distributors to notify the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if they obtain information reasonably supporting the conclusion that a chemical presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.

For multinational manufacturers, this creates another reason to think about chemical data as an asset that must travel with the substance across markets. Information assembled to satisfy one jurisdiction may not perfectly satisfy another, but companies increasingly need a core understanding of chemical identity, hazard, use, volume, exposure, and risk before entering multiple markets.

Japan Creates a Feedback Loop

Japan’s Chemical Substances Control Law (CSCL) provides yet another model. The country’s Priority Assessment Chemical Substances (PACS) system identifies substances warranting closer assessment. Japan’s J-CHECK chemical information database provides regulatory status and assessment information under the CSCL.

In April 2026, Japan designated six additional substances as PACS while revoking six other priority designations. The result is effectively a feedback loop:

Initial information → prioritization → additional information → risk assessment → potential regulatory action

The ability to remove priority designations is equally important. Screening is not necessarily a one-way path toward restriction. Better information can increase regulatory concern, but it also can demonstrate that additional controls are unnecessary.

From Restricted-Substance Lists to Chemical Intelligence

None of these developments means restricted-substance lists are going away. Lists remain fundamental to chemical compliance. Companies still need to know whether substances are prohibited, restricted, reportable, authorized, or subject to concentration thresholds in the jurisdictions where they operate.

But lists increasingly represent only one layer of a much richer regulatory information architecture. Across various jurisdictions, at least six categories of information repeatedly emerge: identity, hazard, use, quantity, exposure, and location.

The next evolution in chemical compliance will not replace restricted substance lists but build on them. Knowing whether a chemical is regulated remains essential. Increasingly, however, companies also need to understand a chemical's hazards, uses, volumes, exposures, and locations before regulators begin asking for that information.

Sun cautioned, however, that the evolution toward more information-driven regulation should not be confused with the disappearance of traditional list-based compliance. Existing restricted substance lists and their legal thresholds continue to determine many day-to-day product stewardship and market-access decisions.

The horizon-scanning opportunity lies further upstream. Canada’s information requests, Australia’s high-hazard screening, China’s premarket requirements, and Japan’s prioritization process all demonstrate ways regulatory attention can begin developing before a conventional restriction appears.

For companies, the advantage may lie in recognizing that movement early enough to ask what information regulators are gathering, why they want it, and whether their own chemical and product data can answer the same questions. By the time a substance reaches a restricted substance list, an important part of its regulatory story may already have been written.

(This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Part 2 is Before the Restriction: Reading Chemical Regulatory Signals, which focuses on the signals that can indicate emerging chemical scrutiny. Part 3 is Beyond the Chemical List: Building Regulatory Readiness Into Product Data, which examines how companies can connect those regulatory signals with product, supplier, facility, and exposure data.)