Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Consultants and the business of climate services: implications of shifting from public to private science

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Climatic Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There has been a global trend away from delivering ‘climate information’ towards producing ‘climate services’ for decision-makers. The rationale for this shift is said to be the demand for timely and actionable climate knowledge, whilst the means of its delivery involves a shift from public good to more privatised forms of climate science. This paper identifies important implications of this shift to climate services by examining the role of consultants, drawing on an in-depth study of adaptation consultants in Australia. The role of consultants is instructive, not just because these private sector experts are engaged in climate services, but also because publicly funded climate science agencies are increasingly encouraged to behave as consulting firms do. Four imperatives of knowledge businesses—to be client-focussed, solutions-oriented, resource-efficient and self-replicating—are described. The paper argues that an emphasis on climate services shifts the incentives for climate science away from the public interest towards the ongoing pursuit of profit. There is a subsequent diversion of effort away from publicly accessible and transparent climate information to private knowledge for discrete clients. Climate services also emphasise knowledge for climate solutions as opposed to the politically charged identification of climate risks. The paper concludes with a warning that the trend towards climate services undermines the knowledge required for societies to adequately respond to the scale, speed and severity of climate change. At the heart of this issue is a climate services paradox: how to achieve customisation without exclusion.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Albeit a public good that many have argued does not fairly represent or equally benefit all communities, and embodies its own exclusionary practices.

  2. In its more general form, coproduction refers to a process of collaboration between scientists and policymakers to jointly formulate actionable knowledge for decision-making. This can mean collaboration on framing the problem, on investigation methods or on analysis. For discussion of coproduction of climate knowledge, see for example Hegger et al. (2012); Meadow et al. (2015). Within Science and Technology Studies, coproduction has a more specific meaning, and refers to the simultaneous production of scientific knowledge and social order in modern societies (Jasanoff 2004; Lovbrand 2011).

  3. It is increasingly common to see consultants characterised as ‘intermediaries’ operating at the science-policy interface (e.g. Meyer and Kearnes 2013; Phelps and Wood 2017) or between ‘supply’ and ‘demand’ in information markets (e.g. Bessy and Chauvin 2013). The term generally refers to something that connects or transports meaning between two or more actors, but there are disciplinary differences in the term’s usage. Within Management and Organisation Studies, for example, intermediaries are typically human actors assumed to intervene in and influence the relationship between two actors, whilst in Science & Technology Studies, the intermediary can be a human actor or a technical artefact (like a report or information technology) and meaning is left untransformed in the intermediation process.

  4. The focus of this research was on consultancies advising on core adaptation planning and policy within Australian governments. This excludes, for example, consultancy firms who provide adaptation advice as supplementary to their core expertise on non-climate projects or policy. There is scope to expand this research to consider consulting advisors on sectoral adaptation policy (e.g. adaptation in water policy or agricultural policy).

References

  • Allen Consulting Group (2004) Responding to climate change: an issues paper. Allen Consulting Group, Canberra

    Google Scholar 

  • Allen Consulting Group (2005a) Climate change risk and vulnerability - promoting an efficient adaptation response in Australia: Final report. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra

  • Allen Consulting Group (2005b) Climate change risk and vulnerability - Working paper for the Australian Government: future research and response options. Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra

  • Alvesson M (2004) Knowledge work and knowledge-intensive firms. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Amin A, Cohendet P (2005) Geographies of knowledge formation in firms. Ind Innov 12:465–486

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Apostolou D, Mentzas G (1999) Managing corporate knowledge: a comparative analysis of experiences in consulting firms. Knowl Process Manag 6(Part 1):129–138

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Apparicio S (2018) One tenth of UK climate aid spent through western consultants. In: Climate Home News, 1st August 2018. Climate Home News, London

  • Auditor-General (2017) Australian government procurement contract reporting: information report (ANAO Report No.19 2017–18). Australian National Audit Office, Canberra

  • Bessy C, Chauvin P-M (2013) The power of market intermediaries: from information to valuation processes. Valuation Studies 1:83–117

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beveridge R (2012) Consultants, depoliticization and arena-shifting in the policy process: privatizing water in Berlin. Policy Sci 45:47–68

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boussebaa M, Sturdy A, Morgan G (2014) Learning from the world? Horizontal knowledge flows and geopolitics in international consulting firms. Int J Hum Resour Manag 25:1227–1242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brasseur GP, Gallardo L (2016) Climate services: lessons learned and future prospects. Earth’s Future 4:79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bumpus AG, Liverman DM (2008) Accumulation by decarbonization and the governance of carbon offsets. Econ Geogr 84:127–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cavelier R, Borel C, Charreyron V, Chaussade M, Le Cozannet G, Morin D, Ritti D (2017) Conditions for a market uptake of climate services for adaptation in France. Climate Services 6:34–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark T, Salaman G (1998) Creating the ‘right’impression: towards a dramaturgy of management consultancy. Serv Ind J 18:18–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • CCBJ (2015) Report 4900: Climate change consulting. Environmental Business International, San Diego

  • Creighton A (2014) Australia second only to Britain in use of consultants. In: The Australian, 2 September. News Corp Australia, Sydney

  • CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology (2015) Climate change in Australia information for Australia’s natural resource management regions: technical report. CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology, Australia

    Google Scholar 

  • Dessai S, Hulme M, Lempert R, Pielke Jr R (2009) Climate prediction: a limit to adaptation. In: Adger WN, Lorenzoni I, O'Brien KL (eds) Adapting to climate change: thresholds, values, governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Donner SD, Webber S (2014) Obstacles to climate change adaptation decisions: a case study of sea-level rise and coastal protection measures in Kiribati. Sustain Sci 9:331–345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • European Commission (2015) A European research and innovation roadmap for climate services. European Union, Luxembourg

  • Faulconbridge J, Jones A (2012) The geographies of management consultancy firms. In: Clark T, Kipping M (eds) The Oxford handbook of management consulting. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Few R, Brown K, Tompkins EL (2007) Public participation and climate change adaptation: avoiding the illusion of inclusion. Clim Pol 7:46–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fincher R, Barnett J, Graham S, Hurlimann A (2014) Time stories: making sense of futures in anticipation of sea-level rise. Geoforum 56:201–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grabher G (2001) Locating economic action: projects, networks, localities, institutions. Environ Plan A 33:1329–1331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grabher G (2004) Learning in projects, remembering in networks? Communality, sociality, and connectivity in project ecologies. Eur Urban Reg Stud 11:103–123

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grove K (2012) Preempting the next disaster: catastrophe insurance and the financialization of disaster management. Security Dialogue 43:139–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guggenheim M (2006) Undisciplined research: the proceduralisation of quality control in transdisciplinary projects. Sci Public Policy (SPP) 33:411–421

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hegger D, Lamers M, van Zeijl-Rozema A, Dieperink C (2012) Conceptualising joint knowledge production in regional climate change adaptation projects: success conditions and levers for action. Environ Sci Policy 18:52–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodge G, Bowman D (2006) The ‘consultocracy’: the business of reforming government. In: Hodge G (ed) Privatization and market development: global movements in public policy ideas. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

  • Hodgkinson JH, Hobday AJ, Pinkard EA (2014) Climate adaptation in Australia’s resource-extraction industries: ready or not? Reg Environ Chang 14:1663–1678

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hodgson D (2002) Disciplining the professional: the case of project management. J Manag Stud 39:803–821

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howlett M, Migone A (2013) Policy advice through the market: the role of external consultants in contemporary policy advisory systems. Polic Soc 32:241–254

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hulme M, Pielke R, Dessai S (2009) Keeping prediction in perspective. Nat Rep Clim Chang 11:126–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IBISWorld (2016a) Engineering consulting in Australia: M6923. IBISWorld. 

  • IBISWorld (2016b) Management consulting in Australia: M6962a. IBISWorld

  • Jasanoff S (2004) States of knowledge: the co-production of science and the social order. Routledge, New York and London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson L (2014) Geographies of securitized catastrophe risk and the implications of climate change. Econ Geogr 90:155–185

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalafatis SE, Lemos MC, Lo Y-J, Frank KA (2015) Increasing information usability for climate adaptation: the role of knowledge networks and communities of practice. Glob Environ Chang 32:30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keele S (2018) Outsourcing adaptation: examining the role and influence of consultants in governing climate change adaptation. University of Melbourne, Melbourne

    Google Scholar 

  • Kipping M, Wright C (2012) Consultants in context: global dominance, societal effect, and the capitalist system. In: Kipping M, Clark T (eds) The Oxford handbook of management consulting. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 165–186

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirchhoff CJ, Esselman R, Brown D (2015) Boundary organizations to boundary chains: prospects for advancing climate science application. Clim Risk Manag 9:20–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitay J, Wright C (2004) Take the money and run? Organisational boundaries and consultants' roles. Serv Ind J 24:1–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kothari U (2005) Authority and expertise: the professionalisation of international development and the ordering of dissent. Antipode 37:425–446

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lemos MC, Kirchhoff CJ, Ramprasad V (2012) Narrowing the climate information usability gap. Nat Clim Chang 2:789–794

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lidskog R, Sjödin D (2016) Risk governance through professional expertise. Forestry consultants’ handling of uncertainties after a storm disaster. J Risk Res 19:1275–1290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lourenço TC, Swart R, Goosen H, Street R (2016) The rise of demand-driven climate services. Nat Clim Chang 6:13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lovbrand E (2011) Co-producing European climate science and policy: a cautionary note on the making of useful science. Sci Public Policy 38(3):225

  • MacKenzie D (2009) Making things the same: gases, emission rights and the politics of carbon markets. Acc Organ Soc 34:440–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCann EJ (2008) Expertise, truth, and urban policy mobilities: global circuits of knowledge in the development of Vancouver, Canada’s ‘four pillar’ drug strategy. Environ Plan A 40:885–904

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meadow AM, Ferguson DB, Guido Z, Horangic A, Owen G, Wall T (2015) Moving toward the deliberate coproduction of climate science knowledge. Weather Clim Soc 7:179

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer M, Kearnes M (2013) Introduction to special section: intermediaries between science, policy and the market. Sci Public Policy 40:423–429

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miles I, Kastrinos N, Bilderbeek R, den Hertog P, Flanagan K, Willem H, Bouman M (1995) Knowledge-intensive business services: users, carriers and sources of innovation. European Commission, Brussels

  • Mitchell T (2002) Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. Univ of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • NSW Government (2016) NSW climate change policy framework. Office of Environment and Heritage, Government of New South Wales, Sydney

  • O’Brien K (2013) Global environmental change III: closing the gap between knowledge and action. Prog Hum Geogr 37:587–596

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palutikof JP, Barnett J (2014) Adaptation as a field of research and practice: notes from the frontiers of adaptation. In: Palutikof JP, Boulter SL, Barnett J and Rissik D (eds) Applied studies in climate adaptation. John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex

  • Perkmann M, Walsh K (2008) Engaging the scholar: three types of academic consulting and their impact on universities and industry. Res Policy 37:1884–1891

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phelps NA, Wood A (2017) Promoting the global economy: The uneven development of the location consulting industry. Environ Plann A 50(6):1336–1354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prince R (2012) Policy transfer, consultants and the geographies of governance. Prog Hum Geogr 36:188–203

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rice JL, Burke BJ, Heynen N (2018) Knowing climate change, embodying climate praxis: experiential knowledge in southern Appalachia. Ann of the Assoc of Am Geogr 105(2):253–262

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rickards L, Howden SM (2012) Transformational adaptation: agriculture and climate change. Crop Pasture Sci 63:240–250

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saint-Martin D (2000) Building the new managerialist state: consultants and the politics of public sector reform in comparative perspective. Oxford University press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Semazzi FHM (2011) Framework for climate services in developing countries. Clim Res 47(1/2):145–150

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shackley S, Wynne B (1995) Integrating knowledges for climate-change - pyramids, nets and uncertainties. Glob Environ Chang 5:113–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steiner JT, Martin JR, Gordon ND, Grant MA (1997) Commercialisation in the provision of meteorological services in New Zealand. Meteorol Appl 4:247–257

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Street RB (2016) Towards a leading role on climate services in Europe: a research and innovation roadmap. Clim Serv 1:2–5 

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sturdy A, Wright C, Wylie N (2016) Managers as consultants: the hybridity and tensions of neo-bureaucratic management. Organization 23:184–205

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suddaby R, Greenwood R (2001) Colonizing knowledge: commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service firms. Hum Relat 54:933–953

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor BM, Harman BP, Heyenga S, McAllister RR (2012) Property developers and urban adaptation: conceptual and empirical perspectives on governance. Urban Policy Res 30:5–24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thornes JE, Randalls S (2007) Commodifying the atmosphere: pennies from heaven? Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Sweden, p 273

    Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan C, Dessai S (2014) Climate services for society: origins, institutional arrangements, and design elements for an evaluation framework. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 5:587–603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webb J (2011) Making climate change governable: the case of the UK climate change risk assessment and adaptation planning. Sci Public Policy (SPP) 38:279–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webber S (2017) Circulating climate services: commercializing science for climate change adaptation in Pacific Islands. Geoforum 85:82–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webber S, Donner SD (2017) Climate service warnings: cautions about commercializing climate science for adaptation in the developing world. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Chang 8:1–8

    Google Scholar 

  • World Meteorological Association (2011) Climate knowledge for action: a global framework for climate services – empowering the most vulnerable. World Meteorological Association, Geneva

  • World Meteorological Association (2018) Global framework for climate services. World Meteorological Association, Geneva

  • Wright C, Sturdy A, Wylie N (2012) Management innovation through standardization: consultants as standardizers of organizational practice. Res Policy 41:652–662

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the receipt of an Australian Postgraduate Award that supported this research project, and the supervisory guidance from Professor Ruth Fincher and Associate Professor Lauren Rickards. This article has benefitted from generous readings by Dr. Sophie Webber, Dr. Sonia Graham, Dr. Sarah Rogers and Elissa Waters as well as three anonymous reviewers although all errors remain the author’s own.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute and the School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Svenja Keele

Authors
  1. Svenja Keele
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Svenja Keele.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article is part of a Special Issue on “Putting Climate Services in Contexts: Advancing Multi-disciplinary Understandings” edited by Sophie Webber

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Keele, S. Consultants and the business of climate services: implications of shifting from public to private science. Climatic Change 157, 9–26 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02385-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02385-x

Search

Navigation