Sustainability Needs Fewer Management Consultants and More Products
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of SustainOps aka Sustainable Operations
This past weekend I read a humorous and optionally accurate post by Alison Taylor commenting on the laughable mindset we have reached when it comes to corporate sustainability. In short, Taylor rips apart “The 8 Responsibilities of Chief Sustainability Officers” laid out in the article, stating;
The authors (who naturally are management consultants) argue that this role is the newest thing ever. Then they immediately suggest that the presence of individuals in different teams with “sustainability” in their job title is evidence of a problem rather than perhaps evidence of integration efforts?
This meme summarizes my thoughts around the article.
Aside from engaging with what I reflect as classic “self implied expertise without the responsibility of real action and failure” mindset, I started thinking … sustainability needs less consultants and more products.
The Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) wave comes alongside the rising tides across the business world as a need for greater accountability and action on externalities. We can put together an alphabet soup of emerging c-suite roles that at the end of the day are responsible for changing the way teams think about, implement, and scale new initiatives like sustainability.
This wave also supports the market opportunity consulting firms take to diffuse innovation among the early and late majority on the very same bell curve as seen above.
Recently consulting firms have come under scrutiny for greenwashing efforts, conflicts of issue, deep control of government relations, and simply described as the consiglieri of the business world. In my opinion, it has becoming increasingly clear that sustainability efforts need to move beyond just consultation and advice; requiring ownership. What I believe in is focusing on creating products that help measure and analyze the impact of our actions on the environment, paired with services that implement said products into activity that is in motion. Consultants can certainly provide valuable insight and guidance on the sustainability journey, but they can only do so much. This is where technology comes in.
From a hardware perspective, I’m envisioning an update of all existing infrastructures and bringing this hardware into new builds. I’m sure everyone has heard of the term “smart cities”. This is the first step in being able to accomplish a future that improves local working conditions, improve mobility infrastructure, achieve net-zero emissions, and upgrade our build environments. A second step will be to focus on the software products that are easy to integrate into the existing sustainability operations workflows. I’m talking about sustainability metrics software, renewable energy management, circular economy tracking software, green building management, and EV fleet management to name a few ideas.
I’m sure that I am not the first with these ideas, but do stand strong recommending all of my sustainability peers … get into a startup and get your hands dirty; it create impact.
Here are a few examples startups within the footprint analytics space with recent funding cycles. There will be a more comprehensive ecosystem image in the near future as I’m still researching early stage startups in the space.
Urjanet, now Arcadia provides a data-as-a-service platform for energy and utility data that helps businesses improve their sustainability efforts. In February 2021, the company raised $20 million in Series C funding.
Verdantix provides sustainability and ESG research, consulting, and advisory services to help businesses make data-driven decisions. In December 2020, the company raised $5.2 million in Series A funding.
CarbonCure Technologies provides carbon capture and utilization solutions for the concrete industry. In October 2020, the company raised $27 million in Series D funding.
ImpactVision, acquired by Apeel provides hyperspectral imaging technology to help businesses improve the quality and safety of their food supply chains. In September 2020, the company raised $3.5 million in seed funding.
PlanA.Earth provides sustainability analytics and reporting software for businesses to measure, monitor, and reduce their carbon footprint. The company has not disclosed any recent funding rounds.
Now where do these products and service need to be sold? Everywhere, especially in cities with new development.
What do Chicago and Phoenix have in common? Upcoming biotech innovation hubs!
New biohubs have the opportunity to provide a centralized location for companies and researchers to work together. Just this past week there were two big new articles that I see as major opportunities for this exact theme of products.
Mayo Clinic set to start work on 120-acre Phoenix biotech innovation hub. Why Phoenix? It’s one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas and ranks top 10 U.S. cities for total installed solar photovoltaic capacity. As already a hub for both a real estate and solar energy, I believe that this development will be the next stepping stone in attracting existing businesses and startups to exemplify how a desert city can become a model for sustainable innovation.
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative sets Chicago as first location for $1 billion biohub expansion. A personal favorite, Chicago is the has historically been a business and transportation hub. This investment in Chicago further solidifies the city’s commitment to sustainability research and development driving a hub for investments across a wide range of industries that will all need support and innovation to transition.
I do have to comment that, whenever large construction projects begin, the sustainability story often gets pigeonholed into understanding environmental impacts and ensuring equitable opportunity. Important — but let’s bring these external impacts into sustainability workflows as the opportunity to integrate and measure on impact.
Real estate and decarbonization are permanently linked. The real estate is one of the largest carbon emitters in the word accounting for 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Innovation in real-estate already has a head start in interconnecting automation and smart-building technology with decarbonization. Today we are at a point were we don’t need management consultants suggesting pathways to decarbonization, what we need is infrastructure and products to enable the pathway forward.
I guarantee we will see existing and new partnering opportunities come out of these biohubs that will inspire me. Ideas inspire, but what I want to be a part of is owning my part in this transition.
Change Requires Ownership
Speaking as someone who has gone through a MBA / MPA program and made a small name as a sustainability consultant, I will comment that the field is niche because the consultants in the space have made it niche and very difficult to compete.
Again, I suggest anyone reading this post to look into the footprint analytics space or products that help us interconnect the damaged environment with our build environment. We have already seen success in B2B operations and believe that it will be replicated. The next step in sustainability beyond education is owning the responsibility in building products and providing services that make sustainability part of every organization’s core.
Parting Thoughts
Although sustainability makes us feel good, I urge to focus on impact; good, bad, or ugly. How we talk about Sustainable Operations is just the example of how quickly we need to change the way we approach our contributions. The history of sustainable consultants and sustainability in general shows us that progress can be slow and difficult, but it only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to integrating sustainability across all jobs and careers. I see a future where full teams that building products, providing services, and talking about how sustainability is core to their team.
Resources
Starting this month, I want to try providing more than just content. Being that this post talked about sustainability consultants, I want to share out prompts that I’ve picked up over the last few years. Let me know what you think!
100 Sustainability Prompts that Every Professional Needs Know.
If you’re building or know someone within the energy transition, let me know. I would love to chat, read your comments here, or exchange ideas on LinkedIn or Twitter. Healthy debate is always welcomed to ensure that we are on the right track.