Chronos Sustainability: Consultancy of the Year

At a glance 
Who: Chronos Sustainability 
What: Consultancy of the Year 
Where: UK 
When: 2024 
Why: For impressive service and support on key climate issues across all sectors 

Chronos Sustainability prides itself on its core, award-winning consultancy services that have helped large-scale initiatives drive change across key ESG metrics. Services offered by Chronos include benchmarking, policy/regulatory analysis, surveys, interviews, strategy reviews and implementation. 

The organisation’s focus is on delivering change across social and environmental metrics by providing expert advice and guidance. Chronos’ ethos is built on understanding the nuances and practical challenges of delivering change at scale and can offer an array of services to make something global. To date, Chronos has covered an array of themes, spanning responsible investment, climate change, biodiversity and nature, sustainable chemicals, animal welfare, food, health and human rights. 

For a team of just 18 professionals and a global network of 12 expert advisers, the change that Chronos has delivered is notable. It worked with the UK’s largest charity fund manager CCLA on a Corporate Mental Health Benchmark This pioneering investor benchmark on employee mental health assesses over 200 listed companies in the UK and globally on how they are managing the business risks and opportunities presented by mental health at work. Additionally, work with the CCLA included a new coalition of investors focused on mental health. Chronos has helped grow this coalition to 48 investors representing $8.7trn of assets.   

Other milestone partnerships include work with the Climate Action 100+, the Global Mining 2030 Initiative, and the Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare. Chronos has also worked to help develop the electricity sector’s guidance for the UK Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT). This guidance will be used by electricity utilities when developing and implementing net zero transition plans. 

Chronos has also worked with major institutions such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation on international ESG disclosure initiatives such as Peru, Colombia, South Africa, Malaysia, Zambia and Thailand. 

Nature drive 

Chronos has also pushed to highlight the prominence of nature as part of a holistic approach to sustainability risks and solutions, rather than just a stand-alone issue. It has advocated for clients to factor in wildlife, human health, land rights and the Just Transition, to strengthen approaches to ESG.  

To compliment the work being done in nature and the Just Transition, Chronos recently appointed Dr Rebecca Drury (former Head of Wildlife Trade at Flora and Fauna) and Pins Brown (formerly Head of Human Rights at Natura Group) to provide new, leading-edge expertise in these areas. 

One such result of leaning into this area has been helping WWF develop its position on integrating nature into climate transition plans, as well as advising the PRI on its nature programme. 

Elsewhere, Chronos has partnered with The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to establish the Chronos Sustainability Prize for academic excellence in responsible business and sustainable finance. It has also supervised postgraduate research at the LSE and at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership on sustainable finance. 

Internal approach 

Chronos realised that in order to truly offer leading services it must first “walk the talk” on sustainability. This approach has seen the company embed a sustainable travel policy, measure its value chain emissions and select a workplace pension provider based on their approach to responsible stewardship. All employees will also be involved in a two-day rewilding event in the UK in 2024. 

Chronos aims to promote knowledge internally, providing formal and informal training and coaching sessions for staff. Employees are invited to attend seminars and conferences and monthly, in-person meetings are used to discuss key sustainability topics alongside the brand’s values and cultures. 

The judges said: 

“Chronos was selected due to the impressive quality of the projects, a wide range of sustainability matters and clear examples and case studies of impactful work pushing forward the forefront of sustainability practice.”