Paradigms in action: exploring environmental consultants’ perspectives on water resilience

Private environmental consultancy firms play a significant role in addressing today’s global sustainability challenges, yet their activities are often hidden or deemed confidential. They are the hired hands of public and private institutions for advising on environmental policies. Despite being part of complex global networks of environmental governance, their involvement in framing the international agenda has been understudied and challenging to access in environmental governance and policy sciences research. This paper examines their role as brokers and translators of global governance paradigms, focusing on how these firms in the global water sector engage with “resilience.” Our question is: How do consultants from global environmental consultancy firms understand and conceptualize resilience in water governance? To explore this, we conducted a survey and Q-method involving 34 consultants in leadership from 18 top global environmental consultancy firms, key players, based on revenue, in the global environmental services market, specializing in “resilient water solutions.” We identified four prevailing perspectives on resilience: (1) resilience through flexible infrastructure, (2) resilience through adaptive multipurpose systems, (3) resilience through risk anticipation and aversion, and (4) resilience through transformability and renewability. Our findings underscore the diverse views within the consultancy sector. These interpretations range from resilience as a strategy for coping and resistance (“bouncing back”) to one concerned with transformation (“bouncing forward”). This paper provides insights into consultants’ active engagement with and propagation of the malleability of resilience, adapting their perspectives based on diverse understandings and brokering nuanced interpretations. This dynamic interaction highlights the challenges and opportunities consultants face in navigating the multifaceted nature of resilience. The study identifies gaps in consultancy practices and the importance of considering systemic issues, such as equity, in brokering resilience. It sheds light on the pivotal role of consultants in diffusing diverse and malleable meanings of resilience within global environmental governance networks.