Sustainability is a key strategic priority for enterprises globally. While many may see it as a checkbox to tick for compliance, it presents a significant opportunity to differentiate from competitors and drive business value. However, achieving real impact is complex.
Enterprises often face challenges balancing sustainability investments with short-term profitability, leading to stalled initiatives. Regulatory uncertainty adds another layer of complexity as evolving environmental, social, and governance (ESG) mandates require businesses to adapt or risk fines, face supply chain disruptions, and market ineligibility. Additionally, data accuracy and integration remain major barriers—without reliable enterprise-wide sustainability data, companies risk greenwashing, inaccurate reporting, and loss of stakeholder trust.
To succeed, enterprises must move beyond compliance and embed sustainability into engineering, operations, and decision-making, ensuring measurable impact and long-term resilience.
Enterprises are operating in a difficult macroeconomic environment, grappling with the effects of geopolitical conflicts, disruptions in supply chains, and the looming threat of tariffs. Additionally, there is the threat of obsolescence of existing business models and commoditization of products and services. The increasing vulnerability to risks has raised the importance of sustainability for significant value creation. In the 2024 HFS pulse survey, 605 executives across the Global 2000 enterprises saw sustainability as a differentiator and positioned it as a high-growth area
(see Exhibit 1).
Source: HFS Pulse, 2024
The data also highlighted growth (11%), shareholder impact (10%), profitability (10%), new business models (10%), and efficiency (9%) as the top benefits of integrating sustainability into business operations.
Integrating sustainability into business operations is no easy feat. Companies often grapple with complex stakeholder alignment, high upfront costs, and a challenging cost-benefit perception. Data limitations, the absence of standardized frameworks, cultural resistance, and the struggle to integrate legacy systems further complicate the process. Moreover, scalability remains a major concern when implementing technological solutions. A misstep in execution doesn’t just lead to financial losses—it can erode leadership confidence and hinder long-term success. Given these challenges, specialized expertise is essential, and the right partners can be instrumental in navigating this intricate journey, ensuring a smoother and more effective transition.
Partnership with third-party service providers to foster faster adoption of best practices, cost-effective and scalable solutions, accelerated innovation, and long-term sustainability success will bring businesses to pole position (see Exhibit 2).
Source: HFS Research, 2025
Service providers with an engineering focus have a unique opportunity to address this market through their technology expertise, innovation capabilities, and understanding of the ESG framework (see Exhibit 3). These service providers have a strong opportunity to influence the ecosystem.
Source: HFS Research, 2025
Akkodis, an Adecco Group company, is embedding sustainability into engineering-led solutions across industries. Its approach focuses on integrating ESG principles into operations, innovation, and workforce development. Through Akkodis Academy, the company trains over 7,000 individuals annually, equipping them with skills in IT, engineering, and green technologies. Akkodis also supports the adoption of sustainable practices through partnerships that promote circular economies and resource efficiency (see Exhibit 4).
Source: HFS Research, 2025
In Sphere Two, integrating sustainability into customer engagement is complex. It requires strong stakeholder collaboration, clear ROI demonstration, and significant investments in data and technology. To drive measurable impact, service providers must embed sustainability across the entire value chain.
Akkodis is advancing sustainability and efficiency across industries through engineering-led innovations. Akkodis empowers consumers to contribute to decarbonization through a real-time monitoring platform that provides insights into energy consumption in the energy sector. Additionally, Akkodis has built a custom data platform for HP, a leading computer and peripheral OEM, to track sustainability metrics across its manufacturing, supply chain, and product lifecycle, ensuring accurate reporting aligned with global ESG standards.
At a systems level, tackling global sustainability challenges—such as climate change, resource shortages, and waste reduction—requires service providers to do more than meet regulations. They must actively contribute to global sustainability by aligning their solutions with international standards and policies, helping enterprises stay compliant while driving real impact. This means working closely with governments, industry groups, and regulators to set clear sustainability standards and encourage widespread adoption.
Akkodis integrates ESG principles into its innovations and policy efforts to advance sustainability on a global scale. It partners with gig economy platforms to develop welfare models that comply with evolving labor laws, balancing social and environmental objectives. Akkodis pioneers hydrogen-powered solutions in aerospace and defense, including the ‘Green&Fly’ zero-emission aircraft, designed for 30 passengers with a 500 km range to improve mid-sized city mobility and promote hydrogen as a clean fuel alternative.
Beyond industry applications, Akkodis actively shapes global sustainability policies through partnerships with MIT, public-private collaborations (PPP), and circular economy initiatives. It engages in key forums such as Conference of the Parties (COP), World Economic Forum (WEF), and European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP), leveraging its expertise to influence global sustainability strategies and drive meaningful change.
Akkodis’ clients state that it stands out for its deep domain expertise, flexibility, and responsiveness. It plays a mission-critical role in helping enterprises such as HP, consolidate and analyze complex sustainability data across business units. For HP, Akkodis enables end-to-end sustainability processes, from data sourcing and cleansing to advanced analytics and scenario modeling.
Akkodis’ flexibility allows it to support real-time carbon footprint tracking, helping businesses gain granular insights—from country-specific trends to individual SKUs. It also enables scenario modeling, allowing enterprises to forecast sustainability outcomes based on product mix, energy use, and supplier changes.
Our business leaders can now run ‘what-if’ scenarios to test how different sustainability strategies impact carbon reduction—something that was not possible before
— Brian Wachelka, HP
Additionally, Akkodis ensures rapid issue resolution without bureaucratic delays—a critical advantage for enterprises relying on real-time sustainability insights.
Sustainability is no longer a compliance exercise—it’s a business imperative that drives profitability, resilience, and competitive advantage. Enterprises must go beyond ESG checklists and embed sustainability into engineering, operations, and innovation.
To succeed, enterprises must:
Balancing its engineering expertise with an environmental focus, Akkodis takes an integrated approach that exemplifies how advanced engineering innovation converges with sustainability requirements to create a responsible future. Enterprises looking for a partner with deep engineering expertise, industry-specific knowledge, and a commitment to ESG can consider Akkodis to accelerate their sustainability journey.
Explore additional insights from Akkodis: Insights | Akkodis
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