The distance between approving and applying

In Spain, sustainability laws get passed. Whether they ever start working is another matter.
Since the European Green Deal, the European Union and Spain have approved an unprecedented volume of rules. But many of them need something more to take effect: a regulation, a transposition, some technical criteria. When that second phase never arrives, the rule exists in the BOE (Spain’s Official State Gazette), but it never quite comes down to earth.
“The Paradox of the Last Regulatory Mile” is devoted to that gap. It is the report produced by Harmon and B Lab Spain that we presented at the event Benefit and Common Interest: a new architecture for purpose-driven companies.

When a rule stalls halfway
The report analyses Spanish sustainability rules approved between 2022 and 2026 and reaches a clear conclusion: delay is not the exception. It repeats, takes different forms, and can originate in Madrid as easily as in Brussels. The Sustainable Consumption Law, extended producer responsibility under the Waste Law, and the energy efficiency of buildings are some of the cases that illustrate it.
The cost is not only legal. While a rule is not operational, the company that moves first bears costs its competitor puts off, and the market ends up rewarding the wait. Or, as political scientist Pablo Simón sums it up in the report: “Passing a law is cheap politically and pays off handsomely in communication terms. Developing it is expensive, slow and barely visible.”

The case of the SBICs
The report focuses on the Sociedades de Beneficio e Interés Común (SBIC, Benefit and Common Interest Companies), the legal form recognised by the Crea y Crece Law in 2022 for companies that, besides generating economic profit, commit to a positive social and environmental impact. Almost four years later, the regulation that must define how that commitment is verified has still not been approved.
Other countries have moved faster. Peru went from law to regulation in just over four months. Italy, with its Società Benefit, closed 2025 with more than 5,500 companies, 241,000 employees and revenue growth well above that of comparable companies. The report’s quantitative analysis points in the same direction: countries with a higher density of B Corp companies tend to show better results in regulatory quality, government effectiveness, environment and quality of life.

And now what?
The report arrives at a singular moment. With the Cortes dissolved and elections called for 29 November, a good share of pending rules hangs in the balance. That is why, alongside the voices of Patricia Gabeiras, María Molina, Juan Diego Mujica, Pablo Simón and Teresa Parejo, it proposes a few rules for the next cycle: binding implementation timetables, a public register of pending developments, laws that work on their own, independent evaluation, and support for those who move first.
Because what matters is not how many sustainability laws get passed, but how many actually get applied.
The last mile counts too.

Download the full report here (Spanish only)