Environmental Resources Management (ERM) expects to make further acquisitions this year to build on its purchase of SustainAbility and develop "the world's leading capability in sustainability advisory services".
"That is our intention," Mick Jenkins, ERM's integration director and managing partner, told Environmental Finance. "SustainAbility is the second in a series of acquisitions to bolster our presence in this market."
In March last year, ERM acquired BrownFlynn, a corporate sustainability and governance consulting business based in Cleveland, Ohio.
The synergies with SustainAbility are both sectoral and geographical, said Mark Lee, executive director at SustainAbility, and "they extend to thought leadership [so] we are able to provide the full breadth of sustainability advisory services to our combined client base".
Both companies have extensive experience of working with the financial sector and their combined client base now includes private equity, investment banks, pension funds and development banks, Lee said.
"The financial sector ... has been a focus sector for SustainAbility for many years," he noted and "ERM has been serving the financial sector extensively globally for decades".
This has included work on risk assessment, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, and "now increasingly policy and governance around environmental and social topics".
In June, ERM and the Principles for Responsible Investment, published guidance on ESG monitoring, reporting and dialogue in private equity.
ERM is taking on all the SustainAbility staff, he confirmed, and the SustainAbility name will be retained, but it will be known as "an ERM group company". No details on the price paid in the transaction are being disclosed.
The transaction follows a wave of consolidation among providers of environmental, social and governance (ESG) data and advisory services and came just a week after Sustainalytics announced it had acquired GES International, an engagement, screening and fiduciary voting services firm, following a string of takeovers of ESG data firms in India, Switzerland and Singapore.
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