Why one founder believes the future of compliance lies not in interpretation, but in execution.
For decades, compliance has been built around interpretation.
A regulation is published. Lawyers read it. Consultants interpret it. Compliance teams try to understand it. Auditors review it. Regulators assess it. Throughout the process, one thing remains constant: people are making judgments about what the regulation means and whether an organization has complied.
The problem is that interpretation is rarely consistent.
Two professionals can read the same requirement and arrive at different conclusions. Two consultants can recommend different approaches. Even ESG ratings often produce conflicting assessments of the same company.
Yet businesses are expected to navigate increasingly complex regulations with confidence.
As Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulations continue to expand across the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom, the challenge is becoming harder to ignore. Organizations are investing significant resources in sustainability reporting, disclosure programs, audits, and compliance reviews. Despite these efforts, many still struggle with a fundamental question:
What exactly does compliance require?
For Isaiah Oluwasegun Owolabi, founder of ESGine, that question exposed a deeper issue.
“What if the problem is not the regulation itself?” he asks. “What if the problem is that compliance remains trapped in documents?”
That question eventually led to the creation of ESG-as-Code, a framework that seeks to transform regulatory requirements into structured, executable compliance logic.
The idea is inspired by a concept familiar to the technology industry.
Software developers use code to automate complex processes. Infrastructure teams use Infrastructure as Code to manage entire environments through structured rules. Security teams increasingly rely on automation to enforce policies and controls.
Compliance, however, remains largely dependent on humans reading documents and interpreting requirements.
According to Owolabi, that approach may no longer be sustainable.
As regulations continue to grow in both volume and complexity, organizations need a more structured way to understand what regulators require and how those requirements should be applied.
ESG-as-Code attempts to address this challenge by treating regulations as something more than text. Instead of repeatedly interpreting the same requirements, the framework seeks to represent obligations as structured logic that can be applied consistently and transparently.
The objective is not to replace professional judgment. Rather, it is to reduce ambiguity and create greater clarity around regulatory obligations.
The concept also challenges another aspect of the ESG industry: the growing dependence on scores and ratings.
While ESG scores have become common across the market, critics often point to their lack of consistency and transparency. Companies can receive very different ratings from different providers, creating confusion for businesses, investors, and stakeholders.
Owolabi believes compliance should focus less on scoring and more on understanding whether specific regulatory obligations have been met.
“Businesses are not regulated by scores,” he says. “They are regulated by requirements.”
That distinction sits at the heart of ESG-as-Code.
Rather than asking whether a company deserves a particular rating, the framework focuses on whether a requirement exists, whether evidence supports it, and whether the obligation has been satisfied.
As regulators increase scrutiny of sustainability disclosures and greenwashing claims, interest in more transparent approaches to compliance is growing. Organizations are searching for ways to improve consistency, reduce risk, and strengthen confidence in their reporting processes.
Whether ESG-as-Code becomes a widely adopted model remains to be seen. However, the idea reflects a broader shift taking place across the compliance profession. Increasingly, organizations are asking whether compliance can evolve from a process of interpretation into a process of execution.
For Owolabi, that conversation is only beginning.
“The future of compliance is not about producing more documents,” he says. “It’s about creating a clearer connection between regulatory requirements, and the actions organizations take to meet them.”
As regulatory obligations continue to expand around the world, the question that inspired ESG-as-Code may become increasingly relevant.
Can compliance be coded?
For a growing number of compliance professionals, technologists, and innovators, it is a question worth exploring.
Isaiah Oluwasegun Owolabi is the Founder and CEO of ESGine® and the creator of ESG-as-Code®, a framework that transforms regulatory requirements into executable compliance logic. He holds an LL.M. in Financial Technology Law & Regulation, and his work focuses on the intersection of law, AI, ESG, and regulatory technology.
www.esgine.io | [email protected]
