Industrial clusters are a step toward the critical mass sustainability needs

Accenture has made industrial clusters—co-located, energy-intensive, collaborating industrial centers—an important pillar of its sustainability and energy transition efforts. These high-impact clusters provide the opportunity and responsibility for businesses to deliver the systems-level pace of change we need to meet the climate and sustainability emergency head-on. And not soon enough. We recently surveyed over 300 senior energy transition leaders across different industries, and only 44% collaborate with other teams in their own organizations to address sustainability. When consideration potential ecosystem partners like customers, governments, or academia, and the numbers are far worse.

Clusters can help gather the right people and the right organizations into the right rooms to collaborate, moving towards the critical mass that may prove necessary to pull policy, the public, and industry into alignment with 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Industrial clusters show how focused and ambitious collaboration between industry and policymaking can move toward the change that the global context demands

Globally, industry is responsible for approximately 30% of emissions. Industrial clusters account for more than half of that 30%. One cluster seeking to address those figures, as well as employment and economic competitiveness, is the Basque Net Zero Industrial Supercluster. Within clusters, industries can share risk, innovation, natural recourses, and more. The industries and processes being brought together in the Basque Country include cement, hydrogen, oil and gas, metals, power generation, and pulp and paper. Iberdrola and Petronor are two leading names of the coalition. The cluster saved 3% of emissions in one year, with a 30% target by 2030 and net-zero by 2050. The cluster is also expected to bring $2.5 billion to the region by 2030 and create and protect 25,000 jobs.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) initiative, Transitioning Industrial Clusters Towards Net Zero, of which the Basque Net Zero Industrial Supercluster is part, is supported by Accenture’s technology, services, and convening. Leveraging its convening power, Accenture included workshops and panel discussions at its recent International Utilities and Energy Conference (IUEC). Other Accenture partners, such as Microsoft, have joined the effort, which also has eyes set on the UK’s industrial clusters.

Accenture has made industrial clusters part of its strategy to play the role every consulting, technology, and business services firm can have from their central positions in organizations, industries, and global systems. Industrial clusters add to the growing body of proof that sustainability (in all its environmental, social, and governance [ESG] facets) works for people, the environment, and economics.

Launched in 2021, the WEF’s initiative focuses on reducing heavy industry asset emissions in regional industrial zones while supporting job creation and increasing economic competitiveness. The initiative’s members account for 451 million metric tonnes emitted per year, comparable to the annual emissions of Turkey. The 17 members employ more than 2.7 million people and represent an annual GDP contribution of $218 billion.

Firms across the consulting, technology, and services landscape can have a major role in forming collaborations and lending them their specific technical, strategic, and convening capabilities. Those collaborations range from industry-specific bodies and global organizations like the UN and WEF to cross-sector partnerships. Collaborations can also be organically created by services firms themselves.

The Bottom Line: Leaders will seek out coalitions to collaborate on sustainability. If you can’t find one, or think they’re lacking ambition, then start your own or help push for the next level of collaboration we need.

Finding the critical mass of business and other partners to reach new sustainability levels can help de-risk the radical systemic investment and actions needed for sustainability in both the short and long term. It can also leverage and change the existing global systems incompatible with sustainability. Banks and other financial services firms are taking a similar approach, which we have covered separately.

Leaders everywhere that want to make their fullest potential impact across the sustainability spectrum should think about which coalitions they can enter—and which they could start. What is the critical mass you could help convene?