Sustainability Services: The state of the ecosystem

This report is a refresh of our sustainability services ecosystem map and market analysis of the sustainability services ecosystem. In November 2021, we spoke at COP26, the UN climate summit, about the desperate state of sustainability. We then published our first Sustainability Services Ecosystem Mapping study covering the consulting, technology, and services firms that can and must change this. This year, we published the HFS Top 10: Sustainability Services, 2022 assessment of the leading sustainability consulting, technology, and services providers. This report is a spin-off and deep dive on the broader market and ecosystem.

Sustainability is a massive systems-level problem. Those systems need to rapidly align to the global context. We already see the tipping points predicted for 2050. We need a new level of ambition. Consulting, technology, and services firms sit at the center of these vast systems. The most progressive have realized the scale of impact they can have from that center. They are addressing their own organizations’ sustainability—but more importantly, they are doing so for their clients and partners.

They use their networks to drive the level of collaboration and alignment we need. They can scale best practices and solutions. The ecosystem map of sustainability consulting, technology, and other services in this report shows the range of firms influencing and helping to transform organizations, industries, systems, and governments, which must all build and execute transition plans that align toward decarbonization and every other environmental, social, and governance factor underpinning the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The HFS Research sustainability services ecosystem map, 2022

To read the rest of the research, click the download button below.