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Corporate Citizenship (CC), a consulting firm specializing in sustainability reporting and strategy, was acquired by the global environmental engineering and consulting firm SLR.

Under the deal, SLR, a UK-based company that operates in the energy, construction, mining, energy and finance sectors, will acquire CC from advertising firm Chime Communications for an undisclosed sum.

Esther Toth, CC’s global executive director, said the deal would allow the company to grow faster and add technical expertise and an implementation element to its offering. CC’s services currently include reporting and safety, sustainability strategy, and management of environmental risks and impacts.

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SLR told Eco-Business that the company was working on a “thorough integration plan” that would not affect CC’s management team and that it would consider where the company’s presence could be expanded next. SLR’s Asia Pacific headquarters are in Australia. CC’s Asia base is in Singapore.

SLR sales were $ 200 million in 2019, backed by acquisitions in Canada and Australia. The past year has been tougher, and CEO Neil Penhall revealed in an interview that the Asia-Pacific region was the least commercially affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

CC was founded in 2007 by Chime Communications, which merged the management consultancy, The Smart Company, founded by Amanda Jordan in 2000, with the corporate citizenship company founded in 1997 by Mike Tuffrey and David Logan.

CC is headquartered in London with offices in Singapore, Melbourne, New York, San Francisco and Santiago. The company opened in Singapore in 2013 and has worked with clients such as the FairPrice Group, Golden Agri-Resources, OCBC Bank, Sembcorp Industries and StarHub.

Corporate Citizenship’s Asia Pacific team

Thomas Milburn, CC director for Southeast Asia noted that the merger came at a time of growing interest in how environmental, social and governance factors can drive growth in Asia as the government and the economy increased its regulation Investor pressure to keep sustainability on the corporate agenda.

The Chime divestment comes at a time when many advertising groups are launching sustainability offerings to capitalize on the growing demand for sustainability communications and services.