Rethinking Sustainability Consulting: A Call for Radical Transformation

Let’s cut to the chase: the world is burning—literally. From record-breaking heatwaves to catastrophic floods, climate change isn’t just knocking at the door; it’s barging in. António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, didn’t mince words when he told global leaders, “We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide” (The Guardian, 2022). Yet, the sustainability consulting industry—the people who are supposed to help businesses tackle these crises—is stuck in the same tired loops. And guess what? It’s part of the problem.

Sustainability consulting is big business. By 2027, the market is set to hit a staggering $16 billion (Verdantix, 2022), the industry’s reach and influence are undeniable. Major firms like Deloitte and McKinsey, alongside boutique agencies, are helping businesses navigate ESG regulations, designing ESG strategies, net-zero goals, and sustainability roadmaps. But here’s the kicker: all too often, consultants churn out cookie-cutter solutions that might tick regulatory boxes but don’t dig deep enough to address the systemic mess we’re in. Instead, these practices reinforce the very patterns they seek to disrupt.

Same old, same old

The consulting playbook is predictable: linear processes, decontextualized data, and a heavy dose of what’s been dubbed “carbon-tunnel vision” (Digitally Cognizant, 2022). Sure, reducing emissions is critical, but what about the bigger picture? The interconnected crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, inequality, and resource depletion can’t be solved by treating carbon as the only villain. While this approach is beginning to change it’s not fast enough.

Worse, consultants are incentivized to deliver quick wins. They swoop in, offer neat and shallow solutions, and move on. There’s no time—or reward—for reflecting on their biases, questioning the systems they operate in, or grappling with the uncomfortable reality that some of their “solutions” might reinforce existing inequalities (Delmas and Burnano, 2011).

Expanding the toolbox with design futures

To support meaningful transformation, consultants need to shake things up. Sustainability consultants can’t keep doing business as usual. To meet the scale of the sustainability crisis, the consulting industry must evolve. The industry needs to stop pretending that it can tweak a few processes here and there and call it a day.

Systems scientist and leading advocate for a just and sustainable world, Donella Meadows, wrote that the highest leverage point at which to intervene in a system is in ‘the mindset or paradigm out of which the system arises’ (Meadows, 1999). The mindset or ‘mental model’ encompasses an individual’s underlying beliefs, assumptions, and values and ‘determines what we perceive as well as how we react to the world around us’ (Gentner, D., 2001, p.1). Our ability to ‘collectively address global challenges will require efforts to include diverse voices, perspectives, and epistemologies’ (Holbert et al, 2019, p.1).

Design futures (‘an interdisciplinary field where Design Thinking meets Futures Thinking’ Avenear, 2021) could help us to overcome these challenges. By ‘nurturing and surfacing pluralistic alternative futures’ (Angheloiu, Sheldrick and Tennant, 2020), design futures provides methods and tools to ‘better understand the challenges we are faced with and spark reflection about implications at a personal, collective and societal levels (Angheloiu, 2021)’, and imagine and design pathways towards a more sustainable and equitable future. It can also help stop the consultancy tendency toward “solutionism” and support the critical need for the consulting industry to embrace the complexities and uncertainties inherent in systemic transformation (Andreotti and Stein, 2022).

What needs to change

For the consulting industry to support businesses to change there is a need to fundamentally reimagine their purpose. This includes a radical ‘reframing of the problem and context in large, multilevel, spatio-temporal contexts’ (Irwin, 2019, p.163), as well as a redefining of the role of sustainability consultants in which they become facilitators, connectors, and ‘weavers’ (Wahl, 2017) to leverage the knowledge already within the system. Consultants need to:

• Prioritize Reflection: Create space within projects for consultants to challenge assumptions, interrogate biases, and consider systemic implications. As well as their own positionality.

• Adopt Holistic Frameworks: Reframe problems within interconnected, multi-level contexts, addressing the root causes of sustainability challenges.

• Leverage Alternative Practices: Integrate design futures and decolonized methodologies to broaden conceptual tools and unlock new pathways for change.

• Embrace Complexity: Resist the temptation of simplistic solutions and commit to addressing the structural and relational dynamics at the heart of sustainability issues.

A Call to Action

Sustainability consultants have an unparalleled opportunity—and responsibility—to lead the transformation needed to address the crises of our time. By adopting methods like design futures, challenging entrenched paradigms, and embracing the complexities of systemic change, consultants can help businesses rethink their purpose and align their goals with planetary boundaries and social equity.

By adopting a more reflective, systemic, and future-oriented approach, the consulting industry can move beyond incrementalism and become a true force for change. The time to act is now. The world cannot afford for sustainability consulting to remain stuck in the status quo. The stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s time to step up, embrace discomfort, and co-create a future that works for everyone. The opportunity for transformative impact is here—will the industry seize it?.

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References

Andreotti, V., Stein, S. and Kui, Chief. (2022). Beyond doomism and solutionism in response to climate change. University Affairs, University of British Columbia, November 11 2022.

Angheloiu, C., Sheldrick, L. and Tennant, M. (2020). Future Tense: Exploring dissonance in young people’s images of the future through design futures methods. Futures, Volume 117, pp. 1-11.

Angheloiu, C. et al. (2019). Future Tense: Harnessing Design Futures Methods to Facilitate Young People’s Exploration of Transformative Change for Sustainability. World Futures Review 2019 12:1,pp. 104-112

Avenear (2021) A Glossary of Futures & Design Terms, 16 June. Available at: https://avenear.medium.com/a-glossary-of-futures-design-terms (Accessed: 10 May 2023).

(Feb 2022) Moving beyond carbon tunnel with a sustainability data strategy https://www.cognizant.com/us/en/insights/insights-blog/moving-beyond-carbon-tunnel-vision-with-a-sustainability-data-strategy-codex7121

Delmas, M.A. and Burbano, V.C. (2011). The Drivers of greenwashing. California Management Review, Volume 54 Issue 1, pp. 64-87.

Gentner, D. (2001). Psychology of Mental Models. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Pergamon, 2001.

Harvey, F. (2022). Humanity faces ‘ collective suicide’ over climate crisis, 18 July. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/18/humanity-faces-collective-suicide-over-climate-crisis-warns-un-chief

Holbert, N., Dando, M. and Correa, I. (2020). Afrofuturism as critical constructionist design: building futures from the past and present. Learning, Media and Technology. Volume 45, Issue 4, pp. 328- 344.

Irwin, T. (2019). The emerging transition Design approach. Centro de Estudios en Diseño y Comunicación (2019). pp 149-181

Knickle, K. (2022) ESG and Sustainability Consulting: Market Size and Forecast 2021-2027, 3 February. Available at: https://www.verdantix.com/report/esg-and-sustainability-consulting-market-size-and-forecast-2021-2027#:~:text=Verdantix%20research%20finds%20that%20the%20overall%20ESG%20and,global%20market%20will%20reach%20%2416%20billion%20by%202027.

Meadows, D. (1999). Leverage Points – Places to intervene in a System. Sustainability Institute. https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system.

Wahl, D. (2017). Sustainability is not enough: We need regenerative cultures, 15 March. Available at: https://designforsustainability.medium.com/sustainability-is-not-enough-we-need-regenerative-cultures4abb3c78e68b