Extinction or rebellion - leadership in Environmental Consultancy
In his keynote speech at the 2019 Environment Analyst Business Summit, CEO of our Consulting UK & Ireland business John Chubb explored the megatrends impacting the sector and how environmental consultants should be leading the climate and sustainability agenda. Hear what John has to say 12 months on at this year's 2020 Business Summit.
[Transcript of keynote speech delivered 19 June 2019]
What am I going to talk about today? Two themes and one challenge. The first theme is extinction - are environmental consultancies going to be extinct in a few years time? And the second is can we rebel; can we set the agenda? And the challenge is: are we prepared, are we able, are we capable of showing leadership in this sector?
As an electrical engineer by trade am I qualified to talk about this? Well for the last ten years I have run environmental consultancies in Sweden and Denmark, as well as the UK, so I have a bit of a European perspective.
In the early days talking to one of my technical directors, I did make a bit of a school boy error...I asked if all environmental consultants are environmentalists. She said some are, some are not so much, some most definitely are, but ALL are environmentally conscious...and that’s important for what I am going to say next.
One caveat - these are not necessarily the views of RPS, some are not even my views, but they are a genuine bona fide challenge to the sector....
“There’s a void of leadership in this particular debate and I think maybe it's our time as environmental consultants"
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