Is Sustainability Engineering Buzz Slowing Down?

Sustainability is a megatrend, and all enterprises are striving to increase their sustainability efforts.

We launched our introductory PoV on Sustainability Engineering in Q2 2021 (Read here), defining the scope of sustainability engineering services. In short, sustainability engineering services can be classified into five categories: energy, material, pollution, water, and food or forest. These categories are further divided based on changes in usage mix, reduction in wastage, or increase in efficiency. The five categories are applicable across three segments: products, process, and place.

Thereafter every quarter, we publish a quarterly Sustainability Engineering Trends report analyzing major sustainability engineering news across leading service providers and enterprises.

 These are:

• Sustainability Engineering Trends Q2 2021 (Read here)
• Sustainability Engineering Trends Q3 2021 (Read here)
• Sustainability Engineering Trends Q4 2021 (Read here)
• Sustainability Engineering Trends Q1 2022 (Read here)
• Sustainability Engineering Trends Q2 2022 (Read here)

 The sustainability buzz was growing at a good rate in 2021, but it declined in the first quarter of 2022. We thought it might be an anomaly, but it again declined in the second quarter of 2022, as shown in the above exhibit. Also, a similar declining trend appears in Q3 as well with whatever news we have analyzed till now (Report to be published next month).

 Is sustainability engineering buzz slowing down?

There could be two reasons here:

1.  Sustainability initiatives are growing at a good rate, but enterprises and service providers are not talking about it now as they were talking about it last year, so the buzz is down.
2. Sustainability buzz is actually going down because of the worsening macro environment this year: war, inflation, recession. Enterprises might be going slow on sustainability because of other priorities.

 Bottom Line: Almost all major IT and engineering service providers have taken a big bet on sustainability with capability development, including acquisitions. It’s worth taking stock of the current sustainability engineering situation, including queries, pipeline, deal conversion, and conversations with customers. There is no doubt about the sustainability intent of enterprises; the only doubt is timing. Do they see early signs of slowdown and pullback in sustainability? If not, then it is fine; otherwise, service providers might need to calibrate their sustainability engineering plans accordingly. A stitch in time can save nine, especially in a recession!