The Creation Of Smart Cities Will Drive The Global Environmental Consulting Services Market

The global environmental consulting services market, valued at $32.8 billion in 2018, will grow to $35.9 billion in 2021 at an annual growth rate of around 3%. This is because governments around the world are investing in the creation of smart cities to promote sustainable living. The overall smart-city experience involves systems and objects interconnected through various technologies such as local, wide area and wireless networks. The European Union is actively promoting smart city initiatives, with funds for research and sustainability targets for member states. The concept of smart cities is also becoming more popular in developing nations: China and India alone have planned almost 300 smart cities. Through the next decade, smart cities will introduce numerous climate-sustainable solutions for industries such as energy, technology, and manufacturing. Companies will strive to deliver innovative approaches to manage complex projects, high-risk infrastructure, and protect public health, by preserving the environment and restoring natural resources, thereby driving the demand for environmental consulting services.

Another major driver of the environmental consulting services market is the global collaboration of countries towards environmental protection to tackle climate change. For instance, the European Union has extensive environmental laws under its European Environmental Law, and SAARC countries have developed the Agreement for Energy Cooperation (Electricity). In 2015, 195 countries adopted the Paris Agreement during the United Nations Climate Change Conference. It is the first legally binding, internationally coordinated climate deal, to help develop sustainable solutions for global environmental issues such as nuclear cleanup and global warming. Under the agreement, governments will collaborate to provide $100 billion per annum to fund environmentally efficient solutions in developing countries, towards which the US government deposited $500 million in March 2016. Since the agreement, countries all over the globe have started to significantly integrate climate change regulations and policies as part of their law-making process, thereby driving the environmental consulting services market.

Companies in the environmental consultancy services market are constantly innovating and developing new services, such as carbon footprint management, maintaining cultural heritage, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), marine environment, landscape architecture, and noise and vibration management. Furthermore, companies are also innovating new industry specific methods to manage waste, such as waste water treatment specific for the chemical, dairy, paper and pulp and mining industries. For instance, GE’s waste water treatment and metal removal technologies enables manufacturing companies to reuse treated water and recover metals such as lead, copper, chromium and iron for commercial use. Such services are customized according to locations, environmental concerns, business industry, client requirements, and dynamic government regulations.