- Sustainability consulting, technology, and business services firms can and must influence and help to transform organizations, industries, systems, and governments, that must all build and execute transition plans aligned to decarbonization and every other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factor underpinning the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. See our full ecosystem mapping report and competitive market analysis for more, as well as our outline of the global sustainability context.
- Demand for sustainability services is soaring across revenues, headcounts, and clients of the leading services firms. We expect approximately 240%, 190%, and 210% growth, respectively, over the next two years. Together, the 18 leading firms currently account for more than $13 billion, 68,000 employees, and 22,000 clients dedicated to sustainability services. Consider pure management consultants, technology and platform giants, engineering powerhouses, and services firms outside the leading 18, and we’d estimate a $50 billion and growing sustainability services market.
- We asked the leading 18 service providers to estimate the change in demand across our sustainability services value chain from +5 (biggest increase) to -5 (biggest decrease). Demand is increasing consistently across the value chain.
- The demand for supply chain and procurement strategies is particularly soaring, echoing the need we’ve seen for organizational-level strategies to be cascaded into business functions through roadmapping, metrics, targets, accountability, and incentives. Consulting for emissions benchmarking, IT sustainability, net-zero and decarbonization strategies, and circularity are also among the biggest increases in demand—again, matching what we hear in both enterprise and service provider conversations.
- Holistic sustainability platforms see the highest demand growth in the technology pillar, as does reporting automation, data services, and Industry 4.0 services. Technology must underpin the business processes that will be critical to professionalizing and optimizing sustainability—like measuring, monitoring, reporting, visualization, analysis, and decision-making support at all levels of organizations.
- For managed services, as well as the processes just mentioned, risk management and mitigation is top of mind (we’re also seeing high levels of activity in the software space for risk management). ESG reporting and supply chain management are close behind matching the demands in consulting and technology.
The Bottom Line: Sustainability is embedding itself throughout systems and organizations.
Demand is soaring for sustainability-specific services, as well as the inclusion of distinct sustainability goals in all engagements. Both organizations and their services partners can act on this—firstly by expanding the conversation. They need to broaden their existing engagements, and look for new ways to collaboration in order to align with the global sustainability context set to (rightly) dominate the coming decades.
Explore the HFS Pulse Dashboard
Take a look at the breadth of data in our Pulse Dashboard, which showcases data about current and future demand trends for technology and business services and related emerging technologies. See more here.
