CORPORATE social responsibility (CSR) involves business organisations acting in the interests of society by taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, communities, the environment, and other stakeholders.
Increasing concern about global climate change is shifting consumer preferences in favour of green and organic products, as well as putting pressure on national governments to put in place environmental restrictions and regulations.
In response to these increasing concerns, there has been a proliferation over the last ten years of consulting firms specialising in sustainable development and the establishment of socially responsible environmental practices.
The following list of sustainability consulting firms forms part of the full list of consulting firms in Australia:
- Net Balance Management
- EcoSTEPS Sustainability Partner
- GHD
- Greensynergy Consulting
- Urbis
- EcoSmart
- GerrardBown
- tdaEnvironmental Consulting
- Umwelt Environmental Consultants
- Carbon Reduction Institute
- Third Ecology Architects
- Water Conservation Group
- SEE Sustainability Consulting
- Enigin
- Neco Sustainability Consulting
- Hayes Environmental Consulting
- Sustainable Consulting
- Carbon Business
- Aria Sustainability Consulting
- Greenbizcheck
- Permaforest
- Ecowise Environmental
- HASSELL
- Carbon Navigator
- EcOz – VDM
- Earth Systems
- Ecos Environmental Consulting
- Coomes Consulting Group
- Green Pass
- Impact Environmental
- Vim Sustainability Consulting
- Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
1. Net Balance Management
Website: www.netbalance.com
Founded in 2007, Net Balance has its head office in Melbourne, and also operates out of Sydney.
Net Balance and has grown to become one of Australia’s largest and most significant providers of sustainability advice, assurance and research, combining strategic advice with technical capabilities.
Net Balance’s sustainability services cover the full value chain. Net Balance offers services within the key areas of strategy, implementation and reporting, climate change mitigation and adaptation, energy assessment and strategy, economics and policy, community investment and social impact evaluation, environmental management, and supply chain policy and practice.
The Net Balance Foundation is a parallel not-for-profit that draws on Net Balance’s expertise. Up to 20 per cent of staff time is devoted to the Foundation, providing affordable services to not-for-profit organisations and bringing the firm’s thought leadership to life through research, events and training.
Net Balance also houses ECO-Buy, a membership program for organisations to access sustainable procurement expertise, resources and peer networks and the Tomorrow’s Agenda Research Institute, which leads the firm’s research function.
2. EcoSTEPS Sustainability Partner
Website: www.ecosteps.com.au
Founded in 1999, EcoSTEPS has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth in Australia and New Plymouth in New Zealand.
EcoSTEPS provides a range of sustainability related products and services focusing on strategy development, implementation, and the development of training and change programs.
3. GHD
Website: www.ghd.com/australia
Founded in 1928, GHD operates in 14 countries and has an integrated network of offices throughout Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East and the Americas.
GHD is an international professional services company of architects, engineers, drafters, planners, scientists, management consultants and economists. GHD contributes to the goals of sustainable development and is committed to managing the social, economic and environmental impacts of its operations and assisting its clients to manage theirs. GHD is a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and contributes to their focus areas of Energy & Climate, Development, the Business Role and Ecosystems.
4. Greensynergy Consulting
Website: www.greensynergy.com.au
Founded sometime around 2005, Greensynergy Consulting is based in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales.
Greensynergy Consulting provides sustainability services for building and construction projects, as well as providing sustainability research and education.
5. Urbis
Website: www.urbis.com.au
Founded as a property consulting firm in Melbourne in 1963, Urbis has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Dubai.
Urbis is an interdisciplinary consulting firm offering services in planning, urban design, property, social planning, economics and research.
6. EcoSmart
Website: www.ecosmart.com.au
Founded in 2003, EcoSmart operates in Sydney and Melbourne.
EcoSmart provides residential and commercial sustainability consulting services. This includes the provision of independent advice , installation for energy and water efficient products and services, and carbon offsetting.
7. GerrardBown
Website: www.gerrardbown.com.au
GerrardBown operates out of Melbourne.
GerrardBown is a sustainability strategy consultancy working in partnership with its clients to position them for long-term success.
8. tdaEnvironmental Consulting
Website: www.tdaconsulting.com
Founded in 2000, tda environmental consulting is located in Sydney.
tda is a sustainability service provider for any industry. In particular, tda is the principal environmental management service providers for film site locations within Australasia. tda is also market leaders in developing sustainability solutions for the energy, utilities and property sectors.
9. Umwelt Environmental Consultants
Website: www.umwelt.com.au
Founded in 1993, Umwelt operates out of Perth and Toronto, NSW.
Umwelt provides comprehensive services to assist its regional, national and international clients with diverse aspects of environmental planning, assessment and management.
10. Carbon Reduction Institute
Website: www.carbonreductioninstitute.com.au
The Carbon Reduction Institute (CRI) is based in Sydney and services clients from across Australia and overseas.
CRI is an experienced carbon management consultancy and offers a full suite of services to corporations, small businesses and individuals.
11. Third Ecology Architects
Website: www.thirdecology.com.au
Third Ecology Architects is based in Geelong, Victoria.
Third Ecology Architects are multi award winning, experienced and practical sustainability architects who specialise in architecture services, sustainability advice and consulting, energy ratings and BCA Section J reports.
12. Water Conservation Group
Website: www.watergroup.com.au
Water Conservation Group is located in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
Water Conservation Group provides a complete consulting, design and construction service to help business reduce water consumption, conserve potable water, and manage water resources.
13. SEE Sustainability Consulting
Website: www.seesustainability.com.au
Founded in 2005 by David Blyth in order to provide sustainability solutions to business, SEE Sustainability Consulting is based near Newcastle.
SEE Sustainability Consulting specialises in partnering with businesses to lower energy bills, lower greenhouse emissions, reduce waste management costs and lower water bills. SEE Sustainability Consulting also has a strong commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility.
14. Enigin
Website: www.enigin-wa.com
Founded in 2008, Enigin has offices in Western Australia, NSW and Queensland.
Enigin assists organisations around the world to address the growing problems of rising energy costs, dwindling energy resources and climate change by implementing proven energy saving strategies. Enigin provides a five step program called EnergyMaps™ that includes: 1) Automatic Monitoring and Targeting; 2) Staff education and incentives; 3) Energy Audit; 4) Implementation of Energy Saving Technology with guaranteed savings up to 40%; and 5) Implementation of renewable generation.
15. Neco Sustainability Consulting
Website: www.neco.com.au
Founded in 2004, Neco operates out of Sydney and Melbourne.
Neco offers a range of services for businesses looking to improve their sustainability practices, including: providing guidance on cultural change; assisting business maintain momentum and credibility; assisting businesses to change internal processes to better monitor environmental impacts; identifying and managing tradespeople, engineers and/or installers; selecting and acquiring carbon offsets.
16. Hayes Environmental Consulting
Website: www.hayesenviro.com.au
Founded in 2000, HEC is based in Sydney.
Hayes Environmental Consulting is dedicated to providing quality and cost-effective consulting services in the form of: environmental site investigations; soil and water quality assessments; hazardous materials surveys; and management of contaminated sites.
17. Sustainable Consulting
Website: www.sustainable.net.au
Founded in 2001, Sustainable Consulting is based in Perth.
Sustainable Consulting works with businesses, government, NGOs and community groups to help them achieve widely-valued economic, social and environmental outcomes.
18. Carbon Business
Website: www.carbonbusiness.com.au
Located in Adelaide, Carbon Business is a professional service provider for organisations taking up the opportunities and challenges of climate change. Carbon Business has alliance partners across Australia helping businesses to strategically position for the low carbon economy.
19. Aria Sustainability Consulting
Website: www.ariaps.com.au
Founded in 2000 by Rick Maddox, Aria Sustainability Consulting has its office in Elanora, Queensland (approximately 100km south of Brisbane and 10km north of Tweed Heads).
Aria Sustainability Consulting is a small Gold Coast based consulting engineering company providing advice on sustainability solutions for the built environment. Aria’s mission is to facilitate the uptake of economic sustainability solutions through the provision of the highest standard of professional consulting engineering services.
20. Greenbizcheck
Website: www.greenbizcheck.com
Located in Brisbane, Greenbizcheck is an environmental certification company which helps businesses to save money whilst reducing their impact on the environment and offsetting dangerous carbon emissions. Clients complete a checklist which prescribes the reduction of energy, waste and water usage. Once a rigorous benchmark is achieved, clients receive a high quality certification with offsets calculated by the Department of Climate Change.
21. Permaforest
Website: www.permaforest.com.au
Founded in 1997, Permaforest operates in the Northern Rivers/Gold Coast hinterland region of Australia.
Permaforest is an environmental land planning and design service provider. Services offered include rural development, environmental land planning & design, sustainability consulting, project management.
22. Ecowise Environmental
Website: www.ecowise.com.au
Ecowise Environmental has been operating nationally for more than 30 years, and has offices in Canberra, Sydney, Nowra, Newcastle, Moruya, Mudgee, Muswellbrook, Port Kembla, Brisbane, Gladstone, Mackay, Rockhampton, Hobart, Melbourne, Geelong, Bendigo and Wangaratta.
Ecowise Environmental provides water-related and environmental consulting services to clients across Australia. Its expertise includes: strategy development and research; planning and design; procurement advice; risk management and audit; environmental monitoring; and conditional assessments of natural assets.
23. HASSELL
Website: www.hassell.com.au
In Australia, HASSELL has offices in Adelaide, Brisbane, Bunbury, Darwin, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. HASSELL also has offices in Bangkok, Beijing, Chongqing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.
HASSELL is a planning and design consultancy providing architecture, interior design, planning, sustainability and urban design services. HASSELL is a founding member of the Green Building Council and believes in being responsive to the climate, using resources and energy more efficiently, conserving species and fostering biodiversity, and minimising waste production.
24. Carbon Navigator
Website: www.carbonnavigator.com
CarbonNavigator™ is an online carbon management system designed by tradeslot Pty Ltd.
25. EcOz – VDM
Website: www.ecoz.com.au
EcOz Environmental Services is a fully Australian-owned and well respected environmental consulting business with 17 years experience in providing environmental services to industry, communities and government in northern and central Australia. The company was established in 1990. EcOz merged with the VDM Group in July 2006.
EcOz offers a range of environmental services including: assessment, reporting, auditing, development of management plans, risk assessment and surveys.
26. Earth Systems
Website: www.earthsystems.com.au
Founded in 1993, Earth Systems has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Shanghai and Laos.
Earth Systems seeks and implements innovative and effective solutions to environmental problems. It has consulting, project management and research and development capabilities in the environmental sector.
27. Ecos Environmental Consulting
Website: www.ecosec.com.au
Founded in 1999, Ecos is based in Melbourne.
Ecos is dedicated to providing services in the areas of natural resource management, sustainable development and public health. Ecos provides a unique service to the water and environment industries throughout Australia, with an emphasis on technically challenging projects.
28. Coomes Consulting Group
Website: www.web.coomes.com.au
Founded in 1984, CCG has offices in Melbourne, Shepparton, Bendigo, Albury/Wodonga and Geelong.
CCG is a multi-disciplined firm of consulting engineers, surveyors, planners, landscape architects and urban designers. CCG has expertise in sustainable development practices.
29. Green Pass
Website: www.greenpass.com.au
Green Pass Australia was founded to address the rapid emerging need for Australian business to take action against climate change through the development of sustainable business practises. Green Pass Australia supports carbon dioxide reduction and through sustainability, offsetting and clean energy.
30. Impact Environmental
Website: www.impactenviro.com.au
Based in Port Macquarie, Impact’s key focus areas include: waste management, environmental education, training, and conferences.
31. Vim Sustainability Consulting
Website: www.vim.net.au
Founded in 2003 by John Brodie, Vim is based in Sydney.
Vim offers sustainable building design, construction and operational solutions on a range of construction projects including: single dwelling homes, apartments, multi-storey offices, hotels and shopping centre developments.
32. Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility
Website: www.accsr.com.au
Founded in 2003, ACCSR serves clients in Australia from its office in Melbourne.
ACCSR helps organisations build performance and competitive advantage through responsible business practices.
33. Cundall
Website: www.cundall.com.au
Founded in 2003, Cundall is a leading ESD consultancy with 15 offices around the world. In Australia, Cundall has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Cundall provides services in a range of industry sectors including ecologically sustainable design (ESD), mechanical, electrical, hydraulic , fire and vertical transportation engineering. Cundall’s services broadly fall into the categories of planning, procurement, operation and metrics (rating tools and simulation).
18 replies on “Sustainability consulting firms in Australia 2008”
Hi Tom
Google Blog Alerts brought this listing to my attention. I am pleased to see my firm EcoSTEPS gets a mention. Obviously in any numerical list there is a tendency to wonder as to the logic of the order – here it appears to be random – certainly not in terms of broader profile or expertise I would suggest!!
Good on you. Cheers, Julian EcoSTEPS
Hi Julian
Thanks for you comment. I’ve moved you up the list.
Cheers, Tom
Hi Tom,
great compilation of sustainability firms and happy to see Net Balance represented.
Cheers, Nadine
Hi Tom,
Nice list. Just thought I’d add that KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young all offer sustainability and climate change services :)
Cheers,
Josh
Hi Tom
Thanks for listing our sustainability company Vim Sustainability in your site.We are lucky last too so we thank you for that.
We specialise in the sustainable design science for the built environment, helping architects and engineers understand the right design strategies for the project location.
We also undertake detailed commissioning and building enrgy and thermal modelling works as well as analysing client operational issues and providing cost effective and practical operational solutions for all size businesses and projects from new communities to a single home.
We are also the ESD Consultants on the first ZED developments here in OZ.
We look forward to being of further assistance as we try to do our bit to help our planet.
Thanks for the list. I am a sustainability engineer hoping to relocate and this has been a major help in finding posssible future companies.
Hi Tom,
I’m enjoying your blog, which I found thoughtful and interesting. Management consulting is a funny business, particularly if you’re trying to promote sustainable business–something I’ve been doing one way and another in Australia for some years, particularly in the financial services sector. It’s challenging in that it requires companies to think a bit differently about who they are and what they’re doing–and it challenges many of the management tools they’re accustomed to using. It would be good if we could find a way to share our experience–perhaps you can create a space for that. I’m doing what I can by developing an online graduate program in Sustainable Business at the University of South Australia [http://www.unisa.edu.au/igsb/gcsb/default.asp] and by passing on whatever I can contribute through advising and mentoring [http://www.geoffwells.com].
that was a super help to me! thanks for that effort! I’m about to begin a Masters in Environmental Management and just looking at my options…
Hi Tom
You might like to add Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility to your list, http://www.accsr.com.au.
We help organisations build performance and competitive advantage through responsible business practices. We started operations in 2003 and service clients around Australia from our office in Melbourne.
Regards
Leeora Black
Hi you may wish to add ecoSAVVY (www.ecosavvy.com.au), established in 2004 and specialising in sustainable housing design for homes in tropical climates. We are based in North Queensland.
Hi Tom,
A comprehensive list of sustainability focussed firms there. I would be pleased to see Cundall added to this list.
Cundall are a leading ESD consultancy with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. We work in a range of areas predominantly in the built environment. Visit our website at http://www.cundall.com.au for details of the type of work and projects we have been involved with. Hope to see us on your list soon!
cheers
Stephen
Hi Tom,
Same as the previous post. Please add us to the list.
GIW is a specialist energy and environmental consultancy. We provide clients with high quality, purposeful design solutions. We have expertise in the following areas:
BCA Section J Compliance Reporting
Environmental Management Plans
Environmental Impact Assessments
DA Planning Submissions
ESD Opportunities Reporting
Energy & Daylight Modeling
Energy Auditing & Building Optimizations
NABERS
Green Star
We provide information underpinned by thorough research and decisions regarding different sustainability elements are well informed. Our approach is outcomes driven, so that there are tangible expressions of sustainable development at the end of the project.
Regards,
Gary.
Hi Tom,
I would have benefited from finding this list around this time last year when I was on the hunt for a job in the industry. Great to see that you have had the initiative to do so.
Thankfully for me I found a company called FWR Group Pty Ltd which is a Brisbane based Consultancy. Same as the previous posts, it would be fantastic if you could also add us to the list.
Kind regards,
Amelia
Great job Tom. This was what first brought me to your site as I have been hunting for management consultancies specialising in sustainability.
Sustainability consulting is a weird thing as everyone from technical consulting to legal firms try to tack that label onto their firm and it is quite difficult to determine what the boundaries of your list are.
A few more specialist firms that spring to mind from my previous research are:
1. Energetics
2. The Shaper Group
3. Energy Advice
Regards
Daniel
Hi Tom
Thanks for compiling this great list! You might also like to add Banarra to your list: http://banarra.com/
Banarra is a Sydney-based sustainability consultancy with a broad range of expertise covering not only environmental but also social sustainability and ethics. Service offerings include :
• Sustainability Assurance
• Strategy and Planning
• Social & Human Rights Management
• Report Development
• Climate Change Management
We are constantly growing and always on the look out for new passionate team members that bring in energy and new perspectives. Any questions? Just give us a call.
Many thanks in advance!
Kind Regards,
Christiane
I came across your list through a google search and hoped you could add MJC Sustainability to your list.
MJC Sustainability is an international network of professional and technical advisors partnering with clients to create sustainable business solutions.
We do this by developing a unique business case for sustainability in client organisations and then bring the right skills, systems and technologies to achieve the desired outcomes.
Founded in 2010, our head office is in Brisbane, with a network of associates operating across Australia, Canada and the Middle East.
Our focus areas are corporate sustainability strategy, CSR, climate change response, life cycle assessment and verification, innovative facilitation, executive briefings and advice.
Hi Tom,
A great resource you have here and its great to see so many companies with a Sustainability focus.
I would recommend adding NACC Sustainability to the list as they offer sustainability consulting as one of their main focuses and the great work Howard Nielsen has done is widely acknowledged.
Regards
Scott
Hi Tom,
It would be great if you could add Australian Green Solutions to your list. Australian Green Solutions offers consultancy advice to organisations as well as working with clients to develop Sustainability Education and Green Skills training.
Consultancy and Education Programs include:-
Sustainability Awareness/Risk Analysis
Sustainability Measurement
Sustainability Strategy Development
Sustainability Implementation and Behaviour Change
Sustainability Monitoring
The key Sustainability focus of Australian Green Solution’s programs is on Education, Innovation and Collaboration
Much appreciated
Yvette