Sustainability consultancy UK

Seven things, in order: that it can say which of your obligations is in force, comply or explain or voluntary; the date the work must support; a named signatory where the law needs one; independence if you will seek assurance; the method and who owns the files; days by grade with year two priced; and real examples of the same work.

Few firms publish fees, and this site does not estimate them.

Fees are usually time and materials, fixed price, or risk and reward.

Compare proposals on the number of days at each grade for the same named scope, and on the year-two price, rather than on headline totals.

For most work the law requires none.

For ESOS, the lead assessor must be on one of the seven approved registers.

For UK ETS verification, the verifier must be accredited by UKAS.

Individual grades such as ISEP membership or Chartered Environmentalist describe a person’s competence, not a firm’s accreditation.

Choose by the work.

Multi-regime, multi-country disclosure that must reconcile to audited accounts suits a large practice; a single defined obligation can suit a specialist or independent; repeatable measurement often suits software with light advice.

If you will seek assurance from your auditor, check independence before hiring its advisory arm.

You can buy them, but who may do them depends on the audit.

An ESOS assessment needs a registered lead assessor and director sign-off; an ISO 14001 certificate comes from an accredited certification body that may not also have consulted on the system; a UK ETS emissions report needs a UKAS-accredited verifier.

Start with the energy and carbon duties a manufacturer meets: ESOS if large, SECR if large or quoted, the UK ETS if it runs a regulated installation, and possibly a Climate Change Agreement.

Then look for energy engineering alongside carbon accounting, and ask for an example on a comparable process.

Financed emissions dominate, usually measured with the PCAF standard, and a listed bank’s UK SRS reporting is comply or explain from 2027.

Ask for the PCAF method by asset class, and check whether the firm would also be your assurer.

Buy consultancy for work that ends (a baseline, a gap analysis, a first report) and keep in-house the work that repeats.

Many companies use a consultant for the first year and software or staff thereafter.

Only if you are a listed company in UKLR 6, 14, 15, 16 or 22, which report against UK SRS on a comply-or-explain basis from periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027.

For everyone else UK SRS is voluntary, and a readiness review is optional.

Most engagements are one of: a carbon footprint, an ESOS energy assessment, disclosure support for SECR, UK SRS or CSRD, net zero targets and a plan, or a carbon claim review.

Assurance comes from a separate, independent provider. Each service is itemised on ESG consulting services.

The phrase is not a meaningful claim: no consultancy is accredited by UKAS as a consultancy.

UKAS accredits verifiers and certification bodies, which then cannot consult on what they verify or certify.

No UK obligation turns on where a consultant is based.

What matters is the obligation, any register or accreditation the law names, and named people with examples of the same work.

Largely the same market under two labels.

Choose on the obligation and the deliverable, not the label.

The ESG consultancy guide covers the ESG-specific cases, such as ratings and FCA SDR.