Anthesis Acquires Best Foot Forward

Sustainability consultancy Anthesis has acquired UK blue-chip advisors Best Foot Forward in a deal that the companies say creates a “new global sustainability consulting platform.”

The agreement combines Best Foot Forward’s Europe-based team with the existing US and Asian operations of Anthesis to form a worldwide expert group.

Best Foot Forward advises clients — including British Gas, Coca-Cola, Defra, InterContinental Hotel Group, National Express, Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Willmott Dixon — on their sustainability strategies.

It helped London 2012 become one of the greenest Olympic games ever and is advising on the 2014 Brazil World Cup and the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.

The two companies say the agreement will help them meet client demand for sustainability consulting that combines corporate strategy, analytics, behavioral change expertise and full program delivery.

Anthesis will now be able to help clients enhance brand value by adopting sustainable business pracices, reduce costs and become more resilient through supply chain management, and demonstrate responsibility in their business practices, CEO Stuart McLachlan says.

In other acquisition news, Monsanto last week bought the Climate Corporation for about $930 million in an effort to help farmers use big data to produce more crops while using fewer natural resources.

The Climate Corporation’s technology platform uses hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling and high-resolution weather simulations to help farmers predict crop yields.

Data science is “agriculture’s next major growth frontier” and represents a potential opportunity of $20 billion beyond Monsanto’s core focus, the company says.

And last month Accelrys acquired environmental health and safety compliance company ChemSW in a move that the lifecycle management software provider says will allow it to expand its services by providing products for managing and tracking the source, use and disposal of chemicals along the entire lab-to-plant value chain.