1. What is the current state of the environmental services market? What are your expectations for the next two years.
The environmental market is booming. This is due to increased social and scientific awareness, industry response to climate change, and the focus on environmental social Governance (ESG) and the transition in presidential administrations in 2021. President Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is initiating new rulemakings to reverse the rollbacks in the previous administration, especially as those relate to climate change. He has also requested an increase in the EPA budget of more than 20% for the upcoming fiscal year.
We’ll also see large growth due to infrastructure spending.
WSP USA and other environmental companies must increase their staff resources to meet these demands. There’s not only a war for new talent, but also to retain key employees as companies seek to recruit industry veterans and specialists.
Many leaders of the Baby Boom generation are retiring soon or are planning to retire. So, we’re intensely focused on hiring new grads and even working with high schools to educate students about the growing opportunities in the environmental and engineering space.
2. What can WSP USA do internally to prepare itself for the generational shift in leadership?
Offer more training opportunities. There’s tremendous talent at WSP and we need to offer more training so that junior- and mid-level staff can level up to meet the needs of clients and the demands of projects. Extra training is also required to keep up with the changing specialties.
One emerging specialty where we’re especially focused on building our internal capacity and capabilities is in climate-related financial disclosure and analyses. I’m very excited about bringing on the experienced team at CFA, a small consultancy that has achieved robust credibility with multi-lateral funders like the World Bank as well as a range of private-sector organizations and governments.
3. How is the climate change affecting financial practices? What is WSP doing to help clients in this regard.
This is a growing priority that has gained real traction in the last few years. Companies are facing new demands from investors and lenders to assess and disclose their climate risks—both the transition risks of changing energy and environmental policies and the physical risks such as extreme weather and sea level rise—and to explain how they’re addressing those risks.
The Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure and the Global Reporting Initiative, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board and International Integrated Reporting Framework Board are all demanding greater integrity and transparency in relation to climate, governance (ESG), as well as general climate.
We’re expanding our pool of skilled staff to meet these growing demands, and we’re drawing on the recent CFA acquisition and other internal experts on climate, resilience and sustainability to provide cross training and specialized support. This is the big picture: Our service portfolio is evolving from traditional environmental science, engineering and design to strong advisory capabilities around the massive transition that is taking place.
The latest Verdantix Green Quadrant Report, which ranked WSP along with ERM, EY and PwC as the four leaders in sustainability and ESG consulting, reflects what we’ve already accomplished.
