Media Alert
Today, 26 June 2025, Open Secrets launches its latest report, The Climate Consultants. The investigative report reveals how management consultants are cashing in on the climate crisis, with a focus on South Africa’s climate and just energy transition space.
Management consultants and institutions linked to donor countries receive the lion’s share of the grant funding for South Africa’s just transition. Around 65% of the committed grant funds have gone to private corporations and organisations as implementing entities. Less than 25% of the grant monies go to local implementing entities, such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), public sector entities, and universities. Often, there is also a direct link between where the money comes from (the donor country) and where the money goes (the implementing entity).
As a result, consulting firms are playing a fundamental role in shaping South Africa’s response to the climate and energy crises, whether it is in their work for South Africa’s largest fossil fuel companies and banks, or for public institutions and government. They do so despite serious conflicts of interest.
Management consultants have permeated every sphere of activity of government and the private sector. Yet, they are regularly implicated in scandals and wrongdoings and enabling grand corruption and state capture. These scandals reflect a systemic and sinister problem in the industry – they operate behind a veil of secrecy with little to no accountability.
Zen Mathe, Investigator at Open Secrets and co-author of the report says that: “Open Secrets believes that it is vital to shine a light on the roles played by these consulting firms and to critically assess their impact on South Africa’s pursuit of a just transition. The country’s recent experience of the devastating complicity of major consulting firms like McKinsey and Bain in state capture—and their refusal to take genuine responsibility for the harm done – is an ever-present reminder of why we must scrutinise the role of consultants, especially when they have an influence on issues of fundamental public interest and importance”.
Micheal Marchant, Head of Investigations at Open Secrets and co-author of the report further says that: “The central role of management consultants in providing advice on our energy transition is a fundamental threat to our democracy. In part, this is because of the absence of any transparency in how management consultants work, and how this secrecy breeds impunity. But it is also because the state’s reliance on consultants undermines state capacity in the long-run and allows the capture of policy spaces by corporate interests that are intimately tied to fossil fuel interests. Where the voices and interests of the public are sidelined, the risk is heightened”.
Given their track record and modus operandi in South Africa and elsewhere, it is concerning that private consultants have been given the opportunity to corner the market for advice on the climate crisis and a just transition with little scrutiny. The climate crisis and how we address it is one of the most urgent and defining issues of our time. South Africa is the first Global South country to conclude a formal Just Energy Transition Partnership agreement with international donors, yet policy responses and regulations are increasingly being shaped by management consultants who see this as a new frontier for profit taking.
The report spotlights the roles played by these consulting firms, and highlights that there must be public debate about how we hold these unelected private technocrats to account. We must critically assess their impact on South Africa’s pursuit of an energy transition that is just and benefits the most vulnerable and immediately affected members of society.
Download the report here
For media inquiries or interview requests, please contact: Letlhogonolo Letshele, Campaigner, lletshele@opensecrets.org.za – Tel +27725650173
