Concerns pertaining to environmental well-being were never more pronounced than today. This is because of the increasing awareness towards climate change which is being caused by rapid urbanization and industrialization. To safeguard the environment, government has laid out several guidelines and rules to ensure that businesses operate within those guardrails. Businesses have to comply with those rules and failing to do so incurs heavy fines and other punishment. Hence, businesses must have a clear understanding of the regulatory regime with regard to their respective industries.
Owing to its increasing importance across industries, the Environmental Consulting Services market is slated to become worth $43.8 billion by 2025. One of the primary sectors contributing to this growth is the energy and utilities segment which is bound to witness aggressive adoption of EHS solutions as the sector has been seeing continuously changing regulations and standards.
The seriousness of environmental concerns and their far-reaching impact has compelled leading countries across the globe to join hands and work together to address this challenge. For example, the European Union has formulated European Environmental Law to put in place a multitude of environmental laws, and SAARC countries have come up with the Agreement for Energy Cooperation. At the same time, a wave of consolidation is sweeping the environmental consulting services market with big players acquiring the small firms to augment their market share. The market has recently seen a host of mergers and acquisitions happening, bringing about a consolidation never seen before.
Traditionally, the environmental services market segment has seen contract based players sprouting as a result of increasing government regulation and enhanced public awareness of the ramifications of non-environment friendly practices. Also, fuelling the market growth is the increase in oil and gas production. At the same time, there have been several factors impeding its growth as well such as dearth of skills and lack of action on environmental issues. Moving ahead, the influx of investments from government in smart city projects, global collaboration for environmental protection and the need to move towards sustainable development are expected to drive the growth of this market.
As more and more players venture into this market, there is an apparent shift from traditional consulting to cloud based one. Companies are adopting Software-as-a-Service based platforms to offer their services through online mode and on a pay-per-use basis. During these turbulent times, this mode offers succour to both the service providers and the seekers. Going ahead, it will be interesting to see how this approach evolves further.
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