Solutions / Research & Intelligence / Sustainability Intelligence

Sustainability Intelligence

Disclosure rules, carbon pricing and customer procurement standards are moving from reputational concerns to line items that change which products are viable.

Know what will applyDisclosure and compliance regimes across your markets, with applicability and timing made concrete.

Priced, not scoredCarbon, recycled content and producer responsibility translated into effects on unit economics.

Watch the buyers, not just regulatorsCustomer procurement standards usually move ahead of regulation and bind faster.

Signal detected Visible in published data your window to act t-24mot-18mot 0t+6mo
Leading signal, detected by PheonixThe same shift, once published data confirms it

In simple terms

You tell us where you operate and what you sell. We work out which environmental rules and buyer standards will affect you, when, and what each one does to your costs.

What Sustainability Intelligence is. Sustainability intelligence tracks environmental regulation, disclosure requirements, carbon and circularity economics, and shifting buyer standards, then translates them into their commercial consequences for your products and supply chain.

What makes this different from a market report. A report is a photograph of a market on the day it was written, and it is written for every company in the industry at once. This work starts from your position and keeps running, so you hear about a change while you can still do something about it.

What the service covers

These are the areas we work across, such as the ones below. We combine them in the proportion your question needs, and we tell you which ones your question does not need.

Regulatory and disclosure tracking

Requirements in force, in draft and in consultation across your markets, with applicability and timing made concrete.

Carbon and circularity economics

What emissions pricing, recycled content rules and extended producer responsibility do to unit economics.

Supply chain exposure

Where sustainability risk actually sits in your chain, and which tiers you currently have no visibility into.

Buyer standards tracking

How procurement criteria are changing among your customers, which usually moves ahead of regulation.

Questions this answers

If something like this is on your agenda, the engagement is already half scoped.

  • Which disclosure regimes will apply to us, and by when?
  • What does carbon pricing do to our landed cost in each market?
  • Are our customers' procurement standards about to exclude our product?
  • Which of our suppliers is a reporting risk we do not yet see?
  • Does the sustainable version of this product have a real price premium, or a claimed one?

How you can use this

A few of the situations where this service does real work.

New disclosure rules approaching

You are not sure which regimes will apply or by when.

A clear list of what applies, when, and what it costs

Modelling carbon cost

Emissions pricing is coming and its effect on landed cost is unknown.

Cost impact modelled by product and market

Customer standards tightening

A major buyer is changing its procurement requirements.

An early read on whether your product still qualifies

Supply chain exposure

You have no visibility below your direct suppliers.

Risk mapped by tier, with the gaps named honestly

What changes for your business

The practical difference between running on this and running on what you have now, such as the following.

You decide earlier

Acting on a shift before competitors see it in published data is usually the difference between setting terms and accepting them.

You spend where the growth is

Capital, headcount and budget go to the segments with real headroom rather than the ones that grew last time.

You reduce the cost of being wrong

Market and product bets get tested against evidence before the money is committed, not after.

Your internal debates get shorter

When everyone works from one sourced set of numbers, meetings move from arguing about the market to deciding what to do.

Your board papers hold up

Independent analysis with traceable sources survives the question internal estimates usually do not: where did this number come from?

Your team stops rebuilding the same analysis

The model and evidence base are yours to reuse, so the next question starts from something rather than nothing.

Who this is for

Roles that commission this work most often include those below. Each asks a different question and gets a different cut of the same evidence.

Strategy and corporate development

Should we commit to this market, and what does being wrong cost?

Sized opportunity by segment, likely competitive response, and the conditions that would make you walk away.

Product and engineering leadership

Will this direction still be right when we launch?

Demand direction by segment, cost and capability trajectory, and the choices that are hard to reverse.

Sales and commercial leadership

Where should my team be spending its time?

Demand by territory and segment, realistic price bands, and where addressable market is growing fastest.

Investors and boards

Does the market evidence support this plan?

Independent validation or challenge of the growth case, plus early warning when a market starts to move.

In-house research and insight teams

We need depth in an area we do not cover.

Specialist capacity that works to your standards and hands over the model and sources, not a closed report.

Typical clients

Large enterprises and corporate groupsMid-size companies without an in-house research teamPrivate equity, venture and institutional investorsBusinesses expanding into new markets or regionsAdvisory, consulting and professional services firms

How we work

The third step is the one that makes the output usable, and it is the one most work of this kind skips.

Step 1

Understand the decision

We start with the choice you are making, not the topic you named. Sizing a market and approving an investment need different work.

Step 2

Gather and test the evidence

Industry data, filings, trade flows, regulation and interviews with people who operate in the market. Every figure is checked against a second independent source.

Step 3

Read it for your position

The same market change can help one part of a value chain and hurt another. We establish where you sit first, then interpret everything through that.

Step 4

Give you the decision

A recommendation, how confident we are, and what would change our view. Then the full data, so your team can audit or rerun any part of it.

One finding established once Upstream supplierProducer or provider Channel or partnerInvestor Secure capability earlyBring the change forward Prepare for the shiftReprice the exposure four different recommended actions
Step three in practice. Your position decides what a finding means.

What you receive

Decision memosix to ten pages, written for the executive who signs

Full analytical report with sizingsegmentation and structure

Model workbook in Excelunlocked, assumptions traceable to source

Evidence appendix with source register and interview log

Access to Phi, our AI research platformincluded

Every engagement comes with access to Phi. Ask questions of your own findings in plain language, pull the evidence behind any number, and keep querying long after the work is delivered. Your team gets the working intelligence, not just the document.

Open Phi
Request a sample Real work with the client's identity removed.

Ways to start

Tell us the decision and the date it has to be made by. We will recommend the smallest engagement that gets you there.

1-2 weeks

Signal briefing

A focused read on one question, structured to commission without a procurement cycle.

4-8 weeks

Intelligence study

Full analysis of one market, technology or competitive set.

6 or 12 months

Intelligence programme

Continuous coverage, quarterly refresh and standing analyst access.

Common questions

Is this an ESG reporting service?

No. Reporting tells you what already happened. This is forward-looking commercial intelligence on how sustainability requirements change what is sellable and at what cost.

Can you separate real requirements from voluntary pressure?

That separation is most of the value. We distinguish binding regulation, contractual customer requirement and reputational pressure, because they carry very different urgency.

Who owns the work?

You do. It is exclusive to you, it is not resold, and working files are handed over unlocked.

Will you sign an NDA?

Yes, before the first conversation if you prefer.

Tell us the decision you are facing

Send us the question, the context and your timeline. You get back a recommended first step, what evidence it needs, and what it costs. Not a capability deck.