global ehs leaders survey 2017: ehs consulting … ehs leaders survey 2017: ehs consulting brands...
TRANSCRIPT
Global EHS Leaders Survey 2017:
EHS Consulting Brands
N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7
W W W . V E R D A N T I X . C O M
Global EHS Leaders Survey 2017: EHS Consulting Brands
This report helps strategy leaders, chief marketing officers and business development directors at EHS
consulting firms to understand the strength of their brand awareness and brand preference in the eyes of 382
customers in 31 countries. The brand assessment study was conducted between June and September 2017 via
telephone interviews with senior EHS decision-makers with direct responsibilities for corporate-wide EHS
management strategies and initiatives. Compared to the 2016 survey, the 2017 version has grown by 27%. Of
the 382 respondents, all belong to firms with revenues of at least $250 million, covering 25 industries. We also
focused on industries with high to very high EHS risk profiles: chemicals, mining and metals, and oil and gas
accounting for 30% of respondents.
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
Global EHS Leaders Survey 2017: EHS Consulting Brands ...................................................................................................... 3
Global Multi-Industry Survey With EHS Decision-Makers Delivers Granular Insight
Commitment To EHS Service Lines Is The Primary Determinant Of Brand Strength
Dupont Sustainable Solutions Is The Only Standout Consultant For Brand Preference
Majority Of Respondents Have Low Awareness For EHS Consulting Brands
TA B L E O F F I G U R E S
Figure 1. EHS Consulting: Brand Preference Ranking ..................................................................................................................... 6
Figure 2. EHS Consulting: Brand Awareness Ranking .................................................................................................................... 8
O R G A N I Z A T I O N S M E N T I O N E D
AECOM, American Airlines, ARCADIS, Behavioral Science Technology, Borealis, Cardno, CH2M, Clean Harbors,
DEKRA, Deloitte, DuPont, DuPont Sustainable Solutions, ENVIRON, ERM, EY, Georgia Pacific, Golder Associates,
Jacobs, KPMG, Mitsubishi Motors, Parsons Brinckerhoff, PwC, Ramboll, Ramboll Environ, SGS, Suez
Environnement, Tata Consultancy Services, Tetra Tech, The Dow Chemical Company, Trinity Consultants, UL, UL
EHS Sustainability, WSP, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 2
Global EHS Leaders Survey 2017: EHS Consulting Brands
This report helps strategy leaders, chief marketing officers and business development directors at EHS
consulting providers to understand the strength of their brand awareness and brand preferences in the eyes of
382 customers in 31 countries. The brand assessment study was conducted between June and September 2017
via telephone interviews with senior EHS decision-makers with direct responsibilities for corporate-wide EHS
management strategies and initiatives.
Global Multi-Industry Survey With EHS Decision-Makers Delivers Granular
Insight
Data on brand awareness and brand preference in different industries and geographies provide essential insight
to help executives shape marketing strategies and improve their pursuit of new business. For the 2017 version
of the Verdantix annual telephone survey of EHS leaders we expanded the survey to cover:
• 382 firms with revenues of at least $250 million.
Of the 382 EHS decision-makers interviewed, 77% belonged to firms with revenues greater than $1
billion. The survey covers firms in the mid-market with revenues from $250 million to $1 billion, the core
enterprise segment with revenues from $1 billion to $10 billion, and the large enterprise segment with
revenues above $10 billion. Among the roles of the 382 respondents, 17% were in SVP, VP or ‘head of’
roles, 25% were in senior director or director roles, and the remaining 57% were in senior manager roles.
From a numerical perspective the sample size grew by 27% compared to the 301 interviews conducted in
2016.
• 25 industries weighted to sectors with higher EHS risks.
In the 2017 survey, we broadened our industry coverage and applied a more detailed segmentation
resulting in an expansion from 17 to 25 industries. We strengthened our focus on the industries with high
to very high EHS risk profiles, totalling 55% of the EHS decision-makers interviewed. The biggest focus is
placed on industries with the highest EHS risk profile, with chemicals, mining and metals, and oil and gas
accounting for 30% of respondents.
• 31 countries with a focus on regions with higher levels of EHS spend.
We increased the geographic scope of respondents to cover 31 countries, almost 50% more than in 2016.
With North America as the region with the highest spend on EHS technologies globally, US and Canadian
respondents account for the largest representation (31%) in the 2017 global survey (Verdantix EH&S
Software: Global Market Size And Forecast 2016-2020). Europe, as the region with the second highest
spend on EHS technologies, aggregately accounts for 28%, distributed across Austria, Belgium, France,
Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
Commitment To EHS Service Lines Is The Primary Determinant Of Brand
Strength
In 2017, Verdantix expanded the annual survey to 382 firms across 25 industries and 31 countries. The largest
portion of respondents (55%) belongs to industries with very high and high EHS risks. The brand awareness
statistics are shaped by consultants’:
• Depth of commitment to delivering services for EHS decision-makers.
Given that the 382 individuals Verdantix spoke to are senior EHS professionals, it comes as no surprise
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 3
that respondents show more awareness of vendors offering EHS-focused services. DuPont Sustainable
Solutions (DSS) – a DuPont business unit – focuses on helping customers improve worker and process
safety with their operational risk management services offering. In the case of ENVIRON (now owned by
Ramboll) and ERM these suppliers focus on offering environmental services. In particular, ERM and
ENVIRON’s brand awareness statistics prove the positive effect of having services that strongly align with
EHS.
• Organizational scale and geographic presence.
Both large organizational scale and broad geographic coverage are catalysts for high brand awareness
among EHS consulting providers. DSS is allied with the famous DuPont brand that, as a whole, employs
46,000 people and operates in 90 countries worldwide. The fact that DSS is significantly more aligned
with safety management than environmental management has not dented its leading worldwide brand
awareness. SGS is a multinational firm headquartered in Switzerland with 2,000 offices and 90,000
employees. CH2M is a global engineering firm, now owned by Jacobs, with $5 billion in revenue, selling
projects across 50 countries. EY, with $31 billion in revenue, is known as one of the ‘Big Four’ auditing
firms, alongside Deloitte, KPMG and PwC.
• Investment in marketing their capabilities in multiple geographies.
In September 2014, WSP acquired Parsons Brinckerhoff for $1 billion and with this, expanded their
geographic footprint to the US. Since the acquisition of ENVIRON by the Denmark-headquartered firm
Ramboll in December 2014, the firm has marketed their brand as ‘Ramboll ENVIRON’ in order to
establish brand awareness in North America – ENVIRON’s regional focus – as well as inform users of their
broader environmental capabilities as a result of the acquisition. In December 2015, DuPont and The Dow
Chemical Company entered a merger agreement, which was only recently completed in September 2017
in a $130 billion deal. During the 21 month transition period DuPont has progressively introduced the
new brand ‘DowDuPont’ on their website. In August 2017 CH2M entered an agreement with Jacobs
under which they will be acquired in a deal valued at approximately $3 billion. As of yet, both vendors
have retained their original branding. Since 2016 UL has been marketing ‘UL EHS Sustainability’ as a sub-
brand to strengthen their alignment with EHS and sustainability advisory expertise, including safety
training and worker health.
Dupont Sustainable Solutions Is The Only Standout Consultant For Brand
Preference
Shifts in the EHS consulting brand landscape have been shaped by an increase in scale of vendors offering long-
standing EHS services, as well as the extent of investment injected into brand marketing after rebrands, mergers
and acquisitions. Brand preference is represented by those respondents who perceived an EHS consulting firm
as having market-leading or strong capabilities (see Figure 1). The survey data shows that:
• DuPont Sustainable Solutions’ brand preference at 32% is far ahead.
DSS is the protagonist of the brand preference statistics: 8% of respondents consider DSS to have
market-leading capabilities, and 25% consider the firm a provider of strong capabilities of EHS
consulting. DSS as its own business unit has been offering operational risk and safety management
services for the past 30 years. Not only has DSS leveraged the global footprint of the well-known DuPont
brand, but also adopted DuPont’s knowledge and experience gained from dealing with safety in the
agriculture and nutrition, advanced materials, and bio-based industrials sectors, such as the handling of
extreme chemical hazards. This experience has boosted their expertise when working with customers
such as American Airlines, Borealis, Georgia Pacific and Mitsubishi Motors (see Verdantix DSS Brings An
Integrated And Behaviour-Focused Approach To ORM).
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 4
• ERM and SGS make it into the top three for brand preference.
After DSS, the two services providers ranking highest in brand preference are ERM (22%) and SGS (20%).
Both these suppliers are very different in their service offerings as well as their organizational scale and
geographic presence. Whilst ERM is smaller in size than SGS, employing 4,500 people across 160 offices,
the firm’s long-standing EHS offering and willingness to deliver work in every corner of the world has
boosted their higher brand preference ranking. ERM offers services that are well aligned with the needs
of the 382 EHS decision-makers we spoke to; not only through their environmental focus, but also
through ERM’s ‘EHS Information Solutions’ business unit, dedicated to supporting the implementation of
EHS software (see Verdantix Smart Innovators: Safety Consulting). In the case of SGS, the firm – with
90,000 employees – offers EHS alongside a portfolio of services delivered to multiple industries, including
industrial manufacturing, mining and oil and gas services.
• ENVIRON, CH2M, EY, AECOM, DEKRA, Jacobs and Golder Associates exceed the average score of
11%.
ENVIRON, CH2M, EY, AECOM, DEKRA, Jacobs and Golder Associates all score higher than the average in
brand preference (11%). Apart from being recognised for their environmental services, ENVIRON’s strong
presence in North America – evidenced by the fact this region accounted for 70% of the firm’s revenue
prior to their acquisition by Ramboll – aligns well with the fact that 31% of the respondents are North
America-based. EY and AECOM are world-recognised, multi-disciplinary consultancies. Since the
acquisition in April 2012 of Behavioral Science Technology, a technical services provider with more than
30,000 employees, DEKRA has extended their offering to provide data-driven technical services for safety
management, such as reducing injury rate. Jacobs and Golder Associates are multidisciplinary, global
engineering firms.
• ARCADIS, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff, Ramboll, Clean Harbors and Tata Consultancy Services score
below the average.
The five adjacent vendors located below the 11% average are: ARCADIS, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff,
Ramboll, Clean Harbors and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Both ARCADIS – with 27,000 employees
located in 350 offices – and WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff – with 36,000 employees operating in 500 offices –
offer multiple services out of which EHS is not the focus. Reflecting its regional presence and core
capabilities in engineering, Ramboll scored 7% in global brand preference. Clean Harbors is a large
consulting provider with 12,900 employees that focuses on providing waste management services. Whilst
TCS has strong brand preference with IT professionals in all large economies, their EHS group is a
relatively new initiative. The TCS plant and process safety team has worked closely with the CTO and
digital enterprise unit to examine the potential of beacons, sensors and wearables to generate leading
indicators for safety incident prediction and developing corrective and preventative actions (CAPAs)
based on near-miss and unsafe acts data (see Verdantix TCS Improves Plant And Process Safety With A
New Digital Paradigm).
Majority Of Respondents Have Low Awareness For EHS Consulting Brands
Looking at the analysis from a brand preference view, DuPont is far ahead at 32%, ERM and SGS follow behind,
and ENVIRON, CH2M, EY, AECOM, DEKRA, Jacobs and Golder Associates exceed the average score of 11%. To
provide an insight into brand awareness as opposed to brand preference we aggregated all responses that
indicated awareness of consulting brands to provide a binary awareness/lack of awareness assessment (Figure
2). We found:
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 5
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 6
2
1
1
2
1
2
1
2
2
2
2
3
3
4
2
4
5
8%
2
3
5
5
4
4
6%
5
8%
8%
9%
9%
9%
10%
11%
10%
12%
16%
17%
25%
7%
7%
6%
5
7%
7%
8%
7%
8%
7%
13%
10%
16%
7%
11%
10%
16%
14%
12%
11%
22%
27%
20%
26%
23%
23%
27%
21%
22%
22%
21%
26%
21%
26%
26%
27%
27%
26%
26%
34%
68%
61%
69%
64%
65%
64%
58%
65%
62%
62%
54%
52%
51%
54%
49%
48%
42%
40%
40%
23%
Trinity Consultants
UL EHS Sustainability
Cardno
Suez Environnement
TetraTech
Tata Consultancy Services
Clean Harbors
Ramboll
WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff
ARCADIS
Golder Associates
Jacobs
DEKRA
AECOM
EY
CH2M
ENVIRON
SGS
ERM
DuPont Sustainable Solutions
Market leading capabilities
Strong capabilities
Average capabilities
Recognise the name, but not aware of their capabilities
Unaware of the firm
EHS Consulting: Brand Preference Ranking
F IGU RE 1
“What is your perspective on the following suppliers in terms of their
capabilities to provide your firm with EHS consulting services?’’
Note: Data labels are rounded to zero decimal places, percentages less than or equal to 5% have been written as numbers.
Responses are ranked by the first two response options
Source: Verdantix n = 382
• DuPont Sustainable Solutions is the stand-out brand in the EHS consulting market.
Seventy-seven per cent of respondents stated they are aware of DSS as an EHS consultant. DSS focuses
on helping clients improve safety and operational performance, serving industries with very high EHS risk
profile: chemicals, mining, and oil and gas. As part of their operational risk management (ORM) offering,
DSS provides advisory services on allocation of resources when mitigating hazards and reducing severity
or probability of unplanned events via risk matrices. Also, DSS has developed its ‘capability engine’, a
comprehensive training program to provide knowledge on EHS in terms of ORM, particularly how ORM
can be intertwined with workers’ existing duties. DSS beats the awareness ranking through delivering
long-standing EHS services, establishing a strong geographic presence and large organizational scale,
and also proving investment in marketing their capabilities through their website.
• Only six vendors have at least 50% brand awareness.
Less than half of the EHS consulting firms listed have at least 50% in global brand awareness. The six
vendors with at least 50% in brand awareness among the 382 decision-makers are: DSS, SGS, ERM,
ENVIRON, CH2M and EY. ERM and ENVIRON are high in the statistics for their strong environmental
services. SGS, CH2M and EY are large multidisciplinary firms which have succeeded in establishing their
brand in the world of EHS professionals. The gap with DuPont Sustainable Solutions is due to either a
lack of presence in some regions such as Russia, Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia or else the
core business of the consulting provider being something other than EHS services.
• Despite their huge scale, engineering services firms lack awareness with more than 50% of EHS
buyers.
Jacobs, Golder Associates, AECOM, ARCADIS, WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff and Tetra Tech are all large
global engineering services firms, yet they score below 50% in brand awareness. See the case of AECOM
and Jacobs, for example, both US-based firms with 87,000 and 70,000 employees respectively, yet less
than 50% of respondents are aware of their brand. Just 35% of respondents stated they are aware of
Tetra Tech, a US-based engineering and technical services firm with 400 offices worldwide.
• Fourteen vendors have brand awareness below 50% of global respondents.
More than half of the 382 EHS decision-makers aren’t aware of 14 out of the 20 EHS consulting firms
listed in the brand awareness question. It comes as no surprise that Trinity Consultants and Cardno are
part of these fourteen vendors; they are smaller firms ranging from 500 to 6,000. In the case of Suez
Environnement, 36% of respondents stated they are aware of the brand. With 90,000 employees globally,
Suez Environnement’s low brand awareness can’t be explained through their organizational scale or
global presence, but their expertise is very specific to water treatment and waste management services.
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 7
G LOBAL E HS LE ADE RS S URVE Y 20 17 : E HS CONS ULTING BRANDS
C O P Y R I G H T © V E R D A N T I X L T D 2 0 0 7 - 2 0 1 7 . L I C E N S E D C O N T E N T , R E P R O D U C T I O N P R O H I B I T E D 8
31.4%
32.2%
34.6%
35.1%
36.4%
36.4%
38.5%
38.5%
38.7%
42.4%
45.5%
45.8%
47.9%
49.0%
51.3%
51.6%
58.1%
59.7%
59.9%
77.2%
68.6%
67.8%
65.4%
64.9%
63.6%
63.6%
61.5%
61.5%
61.3%
57.6%
54.5%
54.2%
52.1%
51.0%
48.7%
48.4%
41.9%
40.3%
40.1%
22.8%
Cardno
Trinity Consultants
Ramboll
TetraTech
Suez Environnement
Tata Consultancy Services
WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff
ARCADIS
UL EHS Sustainability
Clean Harbors
AECOM
Golder Associates
Jacobs
DEKRA
EY
CH2M
ENVIRON
ERM
SGS
DuPont Sustainable Solutions
Aware of the firm Unaware of the firm
Note: “Aware of the firm” is the aggregate number based on the following four responses: “Market leading capabilities”; “Strong capabilities”;
“Average capabilities”; and “Recognise the name, but not aware of their capabilities”.
Data labels are rounded to one decimal place, percentages less than or equal to 5% have been written as numbers.
Source: Verdantix n = 382
EHS Consulting: Brand Awareness Ranking
F IGU RE 2
“What is your perspective on the following suppliers in terms of their capabilities
to provide your firm with EHS consulting services?’’