Saturday, March 15, 2008

"Green is the latest opportunity for consulting firms"

...says CNET recently in their Green Tech Blog

I wrote on this opportunity for consulting firms earlier (link).

The article's focus is on opportunities in the energy efficiency and "green corporate practices" (their terminology). Green IT consulting will grow into a $4.8 billion industry by 2013, according to Forrester Research (CNET).

As I have written before, I think the market opportunity for services providers is much more broad, and transcends just energy efficiency consulting services for IT departments and data centers. So, perhaps that $4.8B is a conservative estimate...

The other "green" opportunities for services / consulting firms? Some areas to consider:

- Global Risk Management, incorporating all facets of regulatory and NGO (Non Governmental Organizations) reporting. (Subsets are: sustainability reporting, "greening" of the supply chain, stakeholder analysis, environmental health & safety, REACH or RoHS - like compliance)

- Engineering Design & Construcion Services: leveraging specific cleantech in water, air, energy efficiency, alternative energy development, and material procurement.

- Operations & Facility Management Services: 'outsourced' services to manage operations; with incentives for optimized energy mgt, and low / zero emissions (GHG, water)

- Integrated Cleantech / Services: Services companies may license clean technologies in energy (modeling, monitoring) as well as in emissions mgt, and integrate with their methodologies; thus licensing integrated 'toolkits' to access the SMB market via smaller, regional services providers



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Scott - good observations about the opportunities. I'll also add the importance of engaging communications staff early. It's important to be aware of the issues and pushbacks from advocacy groups (and competitors). Don't overstate accomplishments or abandon your brand to jump on the green bandwagon. Start creating conversations with customers, suppliers, and influencers about the issues as it builds overall credibility.

Scott Boutwell said...

That's a good point. I met with an analyst group this past week with a sustainability tech firm I am working with, and we talked about strategies for selling "green" solutions. The issue of brand management and communication strategy were identified as significant benefits to buyers of green solutions. I think there are opportunities for green services firms to sell to and work with corporate PR and brand managers as well.