It is well known that the builder’s house is never finished, the plumber’s shower leaks and the electrician’s family sit in the dark more often than most.
Apocryphal or not, the tradition of the expert sorting out other people’s problems without tackling similar troubles closer to home is not confined to the construction trade. Doctors ignore symptoms, lawyers end up in the dock, and accountants fail to file expenses on time.
Providers of business and professional services, such as sustainability consultants, are generally tasked with putting other firms on the path to long-term profit – but that doesn’t make them immune from the challenges facing their clients.
These can include maintaining staff morale and skill levels, keeping ahead of evolving regulation, understanding changes in client need, and optimising new technologies to boost productivity.
As with all the professions referred to above, sustainability consultants can point to plenty of valid reasons why they focus on delivering to the current client – rather than attending to underlying issues back at the ranch that could cause bigger problems in the future.
Soaring demand
Primary among these, of course, is sheer workload. Demand for the services of sustainability consultants has never been so strong among UK businesses. Three drivers in particular are keeping them from tending to their own business models and operations.
First, more UK businesses are seeking support for current and upcoming sustainability-related regulatory compliance. Today, these might centre on understanding how the Voluntary Sustainability Reporting Standard for non-listed SMEs (VSME) can handle obligations under the incoming EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
But many firms are also looking ahead to the UK’s planned adoption of the disclosure standards of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), not to mention the planned extension of these to natural and human capital, and the growth of sector-specific disclosure and regulatory requirements, covering property, energy and land use in particular.
Second, but related to the above, more firms are finding that they need to provide information on aspects of their sustainability performance in the normal course of business, from accessing finance to winning tenders to recruiting staff. Firms are finding they’re increasingly expected to provide such details to larger partners along their supply chains, even if not specifically obliged under rules such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
Third, and perhaps most significantly, sustainability consultants are expected to provide bespoke strategic and business transformation support as a result of growing C-suite awareness of the financial materiality of specific environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities.
The scale, nature and length of projects is becoming increasingly diverse as support from sustainability consultants is increasingly being sought to transition emissions-intensive operations to lower carbon alternatives, address water stresses along supply chains or establish and execute programmes to improve staff retention and motivation levels, for example.
Internal affairs
It is against this dynamic backdrop of growth and competition that sustainability consultants must also look internally at their own processes if they are going to fulfil their own mantra of long-term business sustainability and resilience.
While they might be most closely associated with helping clients reduce their carbon footprints, the biggest challenges to sustainability consultants often lie in the social and governance pillars than the environmental one.
Perhaps the central priority is around staff, the skills, expertise and dedication of which are needed to deliver an increasingly diverse set of services and projects to the exacting and unique requirements of individual clients.
As in any knowledge-intensive industry, increased demand and expectations are leading to higher stress and cost.
According to the latest service sector survey published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in February, costs in the business and professional services sector – which represents around 10% of UK GDP – are rising, while headcount and profitability are falling.
The CBI said growth in total costs per person employed rose in the quarter to February, and was expected to “accelerate significantly” in the next quarter. Meanwhile, profitability “fell strongly” over the same period, and was forecast to drop further, with headcount heading in the same direction, albeit moderately.
These conditions can take their toll on morale. Almost half of workers in professional services told a survey published in March that they were either highly stressed or feeling stressed frequently. The research covered firms in high-pay, high-intensity sectors in the UK and US. The data also revealed that high-stressed workers were eight times more likely to take sick days, suggesting a big hit to costs and productivity levels.
Demand pressures are not the only sources of disruption.
As in all knowledge-driven sectors, the sustainable consulting sector is looking very closely at the pros and cons of tech-based disruption. Many are trying to get to grips with the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to improve speed and accuracy – from data collection to reporting to strategic insight. We are on the cusp of a significant productivity boom, but one that also requires caution as the potential of Generative AI is explored against specific use cases.
However, there are already ways that technology can improve productivity and allow sustainability consultants to focus time and attention on the tasks where they can have the most impact.
Sustainable support
For all sustainability projects, the first step is accurate and comprehensive data collection, upon which to benchmark performance, set and monitor targets, identify risk and opportunities, and make actional recommendations for strategic change.
Only by aggregating and compiling structured and unstructured data from multiple sources using rigorous methodologies is it possible to assess and analyse effectively, identifying the financial materiality of ESG factors and developing tailored solutions that will deliver business reliance and sustainability.
Important as it is, this necessary groundwork can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, taking valuable attention away from more value-added tasks, such as integrating sustainability factors into procurement negotiations and related processes, or developing the policies that improve staff retention as they enter parenthood.
For this reason, The Disruption House has built a flexible and robust solutions platform to provide the information needed by sustainability consultants to initiate and accelerate client engagements. We offer a range of benchmarking, assessments and analytics-based services with the common goal of providing a transparent and accurate baseline from which clients can grow sustainably.
Our services can be easily integrated into sustainability consultants’ value propositions, thus improving productivity, shortening delivery times, enhancing performance uplift and – crucially – giving back time to subject matter experts.
Whether used to appraise the implications of the UK’s latest consultation on developing nature markets, explore the opportunities from integrating AI into workflows, or simply recharging batteries to gain a refreshed perspective, this time is critical to long-term success.
The biblical proverb ‘physician, heal thyself’ exhorts medics to treat themselves before attending to others. The longevity of this maxim underlines the size of the challenge, but it is far from insurmountable. For those that accept the diagnosis, the path to recovery is clear.
