How to Navigate the Sustainability Shift with Horizon Scanning: What Professional Services Need to Know
The regulatory framework around sustainability is shifting beneath our feet. While political uncertainty is creating short-term disruption, the underlying momentum toward sustainability disclosure continues to build. For professional services firms, whether you’re in accountancy, law firm, HR, PR, or recruitment, this represents both a fundamental shift in how businesses are operating and a significant opportunity to lead your industry into a more positive future.
What is Horizon Scanning?
A horizon scan is a structured way of looking ahead to understand what external changes might affect your business. Rather than trying to predict the future, it maps out current trends, emerging issues, and likely developments in your sector. The goal is to spot both challenges and opportunities early, so you can prepare rather than react. For ESG specifically, a horizon scan helps you understand which regulations are coming, how they might affect your firm, and what steps you can take now to get ready.
In this blog we will support you to understand the current challenges and opportunities plus give you practical steps to conduct your own horizon scan.
“Staying still in today’s environment means getting run down. Organisations that manage operations based on previous success without adapting to changing conditions are building in failure through their inability to respond to disruptive change.” – Horizon Scanning: A Practioners Guide, The Institute of Risk Management.
The Key Challenges for Professional Services
Many professional services firms get caught off guard by sustainability developments, and for good reason – most sustainability talk seems aimed at manufacturers or product companies, not service businesses. But this oversight creates blind spots that can lead to unexpected regulatory requirements, rushed responses, and expensive fixes.
Regulatory pressure
The regulatory push is coordinated and growing. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is already changing how European businesses operate, while the UK is developing similar standards aligned with global frameworks like ISSB and TCFD. These aren’t one-off policies – they’re part of an international effort to standardise sustainability reporting.
Client Expectations and Investor Scrutiny
For professional services, there’s a knock-on effect. As clients face pressure to prove their sustainability performance, they turn to their advisors for help. Firms with sustainability knowledge are increasingly winning business, while those without may find themselves at a disadvantage.
Talent Attraction & Retention
The talent consideration adds another layer of urgency. 2025 research from Deloitte shows that employees, especially younger professionals, prefer working for organisations with clear values around sustainability and ethics. In an increasingly competitive talent market, sustainability credentials have become an important recruitment and retention tool.
A Strategic Opportunity Beyond Compliance
Rather than viewing sustainability requirements as a regulatory burden, forward-thinking firms are recognising the strategic advantages of getting, and staying, ahead of the curve.
Understanding what’s coming allows for better risk management. Helping you identify and manage risks before they become expensive problems. You can budget properly instead of scrambling for last-minute fixes.
More importantly, sustainability knowledge opens up new business opportunities. Firms are building practices around sustainability reporting, carbon accounting, and sustainability assurance. Others are advising on social metrics like diversity, workplace wellbeing, and human rights reporting.
Professional services firms are perfectly positioned for this. You’re already helping clients with complex compliance issues; sustainability is simply the next natural step forward.
What this looks like in practice:
Large firms are building dedicated sustainability teams and discovering new revenue streams through sustainability consulting.
Smaller practices are partnering with specialists or developing niche expertise in areas like carbon reporting for their client base.
B2B firms are helping business clients meet supply chain sustainability requirements, while consumer-facing firms use sustainability credentials to attract both clients and talent.
Taking a Practical Approach to Preparation
The key to navigating this complex shift is systematic preparation, not panicked reactions.
How to Get Started
A structured assessment can help you understand what’s ahead. This doesn’t need to be a massive strategic project – a focused horizon scan over 4-6 weeks can give you the clarity you need. Here’s what to cover:
- Global ESG Trends: What are the big forces driving change? Think climate targets, human rights requirements, biodiversity concerns – the issues that are shaping new regulations and client expectations.
- Industry-Specific Impact: How do these broader trends affect professional services specifically? For example, growing demand for ESG audits, changes in recruitment practices, or new requirements for financial advisory services.
- What Others Are Doing: Look at how competitors and leading firms are responding. What approaches are working? What mistakes can you avoid?
- Your Risk and Opportunity Map: Where might new requirements catch you off guard? Where could you build new capabilities or serve clients better?
- Next Steps: Clear, practical actions for your firm – what to do first, what can wait, and how to build capabilities over time.
The goal is understanding your position and options, not creating the perfect strategy from day one.
Effective horizon scanning requires engaging key stakeholders across departments. When communicating your findings to leadership, focus on clear, actionable recommendations based on credible data; keep board-level communications concise with granular detail as backup.
Looking Forward
Consistently evolving sustainability standards call for a fundamental shift in business expectations. Professional services firms that engage with this change thoughtfully will be better positioned than those who wait.
Your clients need help navigating these requirements. Your employees want to work for firms with clear values. Your business development depends increasingly on demonstrating sustainability credentials. Horizon scanning helps us question, challenge, and continually think about future planning.
The firms that recognise this early and build the right capabilities will have significant advantages in the years ahead and the changes to come.
