The sustainability services market is approaching $200 billion

The sustainability services ecosystem is merging as demand soars. We expect approximately 240%, 190%, and 210% growth over revenues, headcounts, and client numbers, respectively, over the next two years. Together, the 18 leading firms across the consulting, technology, and business services sector currently account for more than $13 billion annually, 68,000 employees, and 22,000 clients that are either dedicated to or partly-engaged in 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. Some we speak to estimate more. See our full market analysis for more, and separate sustainability services ecosystem map.

Growth in sustainability services is being driven on three main fronts: hiring, acquiring, and internal repositioning and upskilling. The latter is causing growth numbers beyond many other more established services areas.

Most large and many mid-tier services firms are developing sustainability services capabilities. Audit and consulting firms are moving as fast as anyone in their own capabilities while partnering across the value chain to expand their delivery networks. Technology and business services firms are moving in all directions throughout the value chain—developing consulting, domain specific, engineering, and many other abilities either organically or through acquisitions. Engineering and traditionally EHS (environmental, health, and safety) firms are developing consulting and digital technology capability across the value chain—again, either organically in-house or through acquisition and partnership.

Business process outsourcing, management, and services (BPO, BPM, and BPS) firms, and those same capabilities in broader firms, are increasingly being pivoted to the processes that must underpin the “professionalizing” of sustainability: measuring, monitoring, reporting, and data and analytics services. 52% of this revenue is recurring for services firms and 48% project-based. The recurring half partly comes from the managed services trends just mentioned, but also through the many longstanding audit, reporting, tax, and legal clients that have been swiftly turned into yearly sustainability clients as reporting requirements begin to include more and more sustainability metrics as well as financial.

The Bottom Line: 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 from all organizations and their partners. Consulting, technology, and services firms sit at the center of 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. Frantic market growth matches those frantic sentences.

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.