Welcome to our 2024 Annual Report
The world we live in is changing rapidly. As our clients’ trusted partner in sustainable transformation, Arcadis is focused on helping build resilience – whether that means supporting decarbonization, meeting the challenges of extreme weather, adapting cities in the face of growing urbanization, or integrating digital solutions to get the most out of vital infrastructure. With the launch of our 2024-2026 strategy, Accelerating a Planet Positive Future, we have dedicated the past year to building a solid foundation for a stronger, more efficient, and profitable business.
Sustainability is in Arcadis' DNA, stretching back to our foundation 136 years ago. In 2024, we further built on that legacy by deliberately focusing on sustainable project choices, investing in digital and human innovation, and unlocking the power of more than 35,000 Arcadians around the world. We increased our profit from the year prior - a signal of positive momentum for our business – with strong growth, a record order book, and an agile approach that enables us to pursue the most impactful opportunities in the market.
The choices we’re making now, and the initiatives we’ve put in place, will enable us to accelerate our future ambitions.
Accelerating a Planet Positive Future
The world is constantly evolving, and our clients’ needs are ever changing. When we developed our strategy, we identified the market and client dynamics that are crucial to our long-term success, namely climate change and decarbonization, urbanization, evolving supply chains, increased cost of capital, energy costs, project complexity and infrastructure investment. Those dynamics informed our strategy across three strategic focus areas, and as you’ll see throughout this report, we’ve responded in ways that both serve our clients’ needs and enable us to grow.
Sustainable project choices
We’ve made a commitment to sustainable project choices, and we’re putting it into practice in three ways. Firstly, we only pursue projects that align with our strategic direction, and where we see an opportunity to improve quality of life. This report provides an insight into how we're working with clients on climate resilience, energy security, water optimization and more.
Secondly, when we talk about project choices, we’re also talking about choices within projects. Could we create greater value through more sustainable design techniques? Could we build in digital solutions to help the client manage the asset’s lifecycle and find energy efficiencies? Could we proactively include solutions that contribute to improving quality of life?
Thirdly, we prioritize projects that futureproof our business and set us up for long-term success. In 2024, we continued with our plan to leave the Middle East and refocus efforts on core markets including the UK, Europe and Australia, as well as expanding operations in North America.
We enlarged our Key Client program by 50%, strengthening our partnerships with clients that represent the largest opportunities. As part of our focus on sustainable project choices, our Global Business Areas (GBAs) – Resilience, Places, Mobility, and Intelligence – are becoming more selective in pursuing projects with a healthy profit margin to match our strategic targets. I was also delighted that our targets for reaching net zero by 2035 across our operations were approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative in 2024.
Finally, we continue our long-standing commitment to UN Global Compact (UNGC). Our values, mission and strategy are fully aligned with its principles and reflect our sustainability ambitions.
Digital and human innovation
I’m proud that Arcadis has been named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024 by Fast Company. It’s recognition of the exciting digital products we’ve been creating for our clients, such as Transport Strategy Optimizer. Equally, it’s a testament to the strength of our global innovation framework, and our people’s ability to approach their work with an innovative mindset.
Through digital and human innovation, we can unlock the benefits of technology for our clients. We can also use technology to enhance our efficiency, so that our people can spend more time doing fulfilling work that requires creativity and skill. For example, we’re currently working on standardizing and automating our pursuit process, and I want to push this further so we can make the best use of our resources while maximizing successful bids.
The choices we’re making now, and the initiatives we’ve put in place, will enable us to accelerate our future ambitions.
Artificial intelligence (AI) offers many exciting possibilities, and we want to incorporate it into our work in a considered way. Internally, we’ve been testing our own artificial intelligence tool, Arcadis-GPT, to see how it can contribute to our operations. Externally, we’re bringing AI into our digital solutions. Our Bridge Health product, for example, uses AI-enhanced predictive maintenance to help clients manage bridges and ensure they remain safe for use.
Powered by our people
None of our success would be possible without the talent and creativity of our Arcadians. I thank them all for their contributions to our success in 2024.
This was my first full year as CEO, and I’ve been proud to see people getting excited about the new strategy. On our strategy roadshows, the leadership team and I met more than 4,800 Arcadians across the global business. We were delighted that our people have recognized how the strategy resonates with our mission to improve quality of life, embracing our commitment to sustainable project choices. This passion is highlighted by our Your Voice employee engagement scores, in which Arcadis remains in the top quartile across our industry.
I’ve been proud to see people getting excited about the new strategy. Arcadians have recognized how the strategy resonates with our mission to improve quality of life.
In 2024, we were focused on supercharging and harnessing our people’s skills, including through investment in our Energy Transition Academy and by starting our transformation into a Skills Powered Organization (SPO). As an SPO, we are enabling people to develop their skills, advance their careers, and be deployed on the projects where their capabilities are most needed. Since the launch of SPO in May, over 15,000 Arcadians have signed up and more will follow in 2025 as rollout continues.
Another major focus for 2024 was increasing the use of our Global Excellence Centers (GECs) in the Philippines, India and Romania. Employees working in our GECs are critical to Arcadis’ success and efficiency, contributing technical skills (for example, in engineering) that enable us to carry out projects in a more agile way across the business. In 2024 we increased the proportion of our business that flows through these knowledge hubs, while also increasing GEC headcount from 4,248 to 4,976 (17%) to ensure greater capacity and capabilities.
Trends and highlights from 2024
Leadership changes
We made some changes to our Executive Leadership Team (ELT) in 2024 that will help us achieve our growth ambitions, as well as ensure the development of our people. Juud Tempelman, who led the Intelligence GBA, has moved over to Places and will be focusing on growing our business globally, with a particular focus on North America, while Edel Christie takes on a new role that aligns Digital Intelligence with Growth. Meanwhile, Mark Cowlard has become our new Chief People Officer, and Emily Barker joined the ELT as our new Global General Counsel. I would also like to thank Sandra Bolder, who left the business this year, for her contribution to Arcadis.
Water management
As a company founded in the Netherlands, a country that is one-third below sea level, we have – as you might imagine – longstanding expertise in water management. Today, we’ve diversified our water-related capabilities, and we’re working with clients all over the world to meet their water needs – whether that’s keeping water out (preventing floods) or in (identifying leaky pipes). Overall, 15% of our net revenues are related to water and water management, making this a significant part of the business.
We’re seeing interest from clients in climate resilience and how to prepare for more storm surges, flooding, and heavy rain. In 2024, we were selected as lead designer for a groundbreaking flood protection program in Virginia Beach, US, and entered into a new eight-year contract with the Canal and River Trust in the UK, to manage and protect more than 2,000 miles of waterways. At the same time, we’re working with water utilities companies to implement leak detection tools and technologies and manage their assets more effectively.
On a related note, we’ve seen an uptick of interest – and sizable wins – in addressing PFAS contamination. There is growing concern about the dangers of these compounds, widely used in manufacturing for many decades, which is driving clients to look at PFAS in their buildings’ fire suppression systems, or their water systems. This is a fast growing market for Arcadis.
Advanced industry
We see ourselves as a partner to our clients, and that means evolving and developing the capabilities to meet their needs. And our clients’ needs are only becoming more complex with the increased integration of robotics, new technologies and algorithms.
Accordingly, we’ve expanded our offering, partly through the integration of DPS Group (acquired in 2022) into our Places GBA, so that we can design industrial facilities more holistically. This has helped us to meet our clients’ needs in the life sciences sector, in high-tech manufacturing of products such as semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries. In terms of what we can offer our clients, this is a clear differentiator for Arcadis.
Making sustainable project choices also comes into play here. Many industries have significant environmental impacts and by being involved in the design of facilities, we can find more sustainable solutions. For example, there’s now a need for more data centers to meet surging demand, but what if, in parallel to serving that demand, we could bring carbon emissions as close to net zero as possible? That’s the question behind a groundbreaking data center design we created for a client in California. The facility would feature a greenhouse powered by excess heat, enabling food production and benefiting the local community.
Energy efficiency and security
Decarbonization, energy security and transition are market growth areas across all our GBAs, as our clients respond to growing pressures. This includes the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to meet internal targets and net zero goals, the requirement to comply with new emissions regulations, and the desire to cut energy consumption as energy costs go up.
A notable example of our work in this area is the progress we've made on the Rhein-Main-Link in Germany this year. This 500 km energy route will transport electricity from offshore wind farms in the North Sea to the Rhein-Main region as part of the country’s energy grid expansion plan.
We also won a major contract with Heineken, who we’ll be supporting with a long-term decarbonization strategy. I’ve been particularly impressed to see all the different parts of our business coming together on this project to contribute innovative, intelligent and resilient solutions.
We’re entering a critical decade, and I believe that our industry will see more change in the next 10 years than we’ve seen in the last 50.
On asset management, we’re finding that clients want to know how their assets – or even how cities as a whole – can operate more efficiently and generate fewer emissions. Data is critical to this, and clients come to us now for our digital tools and expertise. Our portfolio of digital products, such as Enterprise Decision Analytics (EDA), has been increasingly popular in 2024, with significant wins in the US and Canada.
Mobility and transport
Our Mobility GBA had a particularly strong 2024, with significant multi-year project wins like the Hudson Tunnel in New York and Zuidasdok in Amsterdam. What we have seen is major cities seriously considering how to meet the population’s transportation needs, in a way that encourages public transport use, walking and cycling, while also improving auto drivers’ experiences by simplifying parking and reducing congestion.
Sometimes this requires new infrastructure, as with the Melbourne Metro in Australia where we’ve been chosen to provide support on a new rail line. Or in Canada, where we were named lead designer on the Fraser Tunnel project, which will help cut pollution by reducing traffic congestion while providing safe and convenient options for transit, cycling and walking.
In other cases, it’s more about making the most of existing infrastructure, with digital tools such as CurbIQ. Our clients know, and we know, that communities appreciate mobile-based tools as they navigate the city whatever their mode of transport.
Looking ahead
We’re entering a critical decade, and I believe that our industry will see more change in the next 10 years than we’ve seen in the last 50. The world is changing fast, with a growing population, increasing urbanization, and technological advances. And we’re already facing challenges such as extreme heat, rising sea levels, floods and hurricanes – challenges that unfortunately will increase. In the coming years, an enormous amount of infrastructure investment will also be needed to maintain and renew critical assets such as bridges, water systems, flood defences, highways and railways.
But, as our 2024 Sustainable Cities Index shows, many cities are already confronting these challenges, with policies and actions to improve connectivity, energy consumption, and resilience to natural disaster. So much is possible. At Arcadis, we have the talent and expertise and are ready to find meaningful solutions – and accelerate a planet positive future for our clients and the communities where we operate.
Alan Brookes, CEO
On behalf of the Executive Board
