Big Three management consultancy Bain & Company has partnered with Schneider Electric to support clients’ sustainability initiatives.

Through the alliance, the firms will advise enterprises on how they can reduce their environmental footprints. Bain and Schneider Electric can, for instance, work with a bank to develop a strategy for switching its branch locations to renewable energy.

Bain is one of the world’s most profitable management consultancies. It launched in 1973 and has since grown from a small firm to a leading industry player with 13,000 professionals worldwide.

About a decade ago, Bain launched a sustainability consulting practice.  The practice has since taken on more than 950 client projects and grew by 65% in each of the past five years.

Bain’s partnership with Schneider Electric is intended to accelerate that growth.

Schneider Electric is a leading maker of electric equipment such as circuit breakers, cables and lighting control systems. A lesser known fact about the Paris-based company is that it’s also a major player in the consulting market.

Schneider Electric works with companies to procure renewable energy for their facilities, as well as reduce the carbon footprint of their suppliers. The firm can also assist a firm’s executives with the process of measuring how well sustainability goals are being met.

Bain and Schneider Electric describe their collaboration as a worldwide strategic partnership. In other words, the firms intend to compete for client accounts around the world rather than focus on one specific market.

There’s a second, equally important aspect to the alliance. Companies’ sustainability initiatives often span business units in multiple countries and, because Bain’s partnership with Schneider Electric is not limited to one region, it will be able to support such large-scale initiatives.

According to Bain’s website, the consultancy employs about 480 partners and managers who have experience in sustainability consulting. That number doesn’t account for the likely significant number of less senior staffers who specialize in this area. 

Schneider Electric, in turn, has 2,500-plus experts in over 100 countries who focus on carbon footprint reduction initiatives and related projects.

Bain and Schneider Electric have a lot of potential consulting projects to look forward to. According to research shared by Bain, more than 4,000 companies worldwide have set carbon reduction targets for the next 25 years. 

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