Service Design for ESG Consulting
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The initial brief given to us was the C0* Model, a white paper designed to evaluate an organization’s ESG maturity across dimensions such as:
Carbon footprint reporting
Employee engagement & culture
Energy efficiency & management
Sustainable procurement & supply chain practices
Our challenge was to translate this high-level maturity model into a practical service blueprint and toolkit that organizations could adopt, measure, and act upon.
Duration: 8 weeks, 3 Phases
Team: 2 Senior Strategists, 1 Director of Design Strategy, 3 UX Designers/Researchers
My Role: I I contributed to both - Design & Research requirements, service analysis, competitive benchmarking, service blueprint design, to translate the C0 Model into a practical ESG consulting toolkit.
Outcome: The project was highly appreciated by internal stakeholders and the client, and my contributions were recognized with the Designer of the Month award 🏆.
Phase 1
We began by reviewing the initial C0 Model brief and conducting exploratory research to understand how ESG consulting services were being framed in the broader industry. To ground this in our client’s context, we deep-dived into the initial expectations workshop with stakeholders and also reviewed stakeholder feedback that the client had already collected.
Through this process, we identified the existing landscape of ESG reporting practices, clarified stakeholder perspectives, and mapped the opportunity areas where our client’s consulting service could differentiate itself. This foundation enabled us to shape the design of the stakeholder-thinking workshop — helping our client articulate and define the goals of the ESG consulting service they aimed to offer.
Phase 2
For secondary research, we:
Synthesized ESG Norms: Mapped out the differences between frameworks, standards, and regulations to create a clear baseline for the client.
Benchmarked Practices: Analyzed leading guidelines (e.g., SASB, TCFD, GRI, UNSDGs, EU Directives) to understand how organizations structure ESG reporting.
Translated Insights: Highlighted the implications of each approach (voluntary vs. binding, industry-specific vs. global) and connected them to client needs.
Phase 3
For Phase 3, we did the following:
Service Analysis: Broke down the client’s initial brief and survey inputs into structured service layers.
Blueprint Mapping: Outlined the end-to-end ESG engagement — from discovery to workshops to roadmap — across client actions, consultant actions, touchpoints, and supporting assets.
Stakeholder Alignment: Integrated insights from the initial expectations workshop to ensure the blueprint reflected stakeholder needs and priorities.
Opportunity Identification: Highlighted gaps and potential differentiators in how the client’s ESG service could stand out from competitors.
Why It Mattered
This step translated an open-ended white paper brief into a tangible service blueprint, grounding it with data, and giving stakeholders a clear picture of how their consulting offering could operate in practice and where it could differentiate.n The entire process was elaborate, but I've attached a high level summary of the service blue print we designed.
Learnings
The brief was intentionally open-ended, which at first made it challenging to stay anchored. With limited time and data, our research and synthesis often risked diverging into tangential directions. However, the same openness also became a strength: it gave us the flexibility to explore multiple perspectives, experiment with frameworks, and identify opportunities that a rigid brief might have overlooked.
The key takeaway was learning how to balance exploration with focus — staying open to unexpected insights while continuously steering back to the client’s core need: shaping a practical ESG consulting blueprint.
Snippet of 3/4th the team in an ideation session for the service blueprint