Industrial Economics

What Industrial Economics does

Industrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc) is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based professional services consulting firm founded in 1981 by Michael T. Huguenin and Sharon Chown. The firm delivers multidisciplinary economic, scientific, financial, and policy analysis to federal and state government agencies, regulators, multilateral institutions, utilities, corporate clients, and litigators. Its practice spans eight service lines — Natural Resource Management, Public Policy Analysis, Applied Economics, Finance & Forensic Analysis, Program Design & Evaluation, Sustainability, Information Technologies & Communication, and Energy & Transportation — addressing natural resource damage assessment (NRDA), benefit-cost analysis, climate impacts, regulatory analysis, GHG footprinting, expert witness testimony, and program evaluation.

IEc generates revenue primarily through project-based and multi-year consulting engagements procured under GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contract 47QRAA20D0044 (SIN 541620 Environmental Consulting Services and SIN 541611 Management and Financial Consulting). Pricing is set on the formal GSA price list and is not publicly disclosed on IEc's website; engagements are scoped individually and led by Principals who direct staffing and client relationships, with Senior Associates managing day-to-day delivery. Notable anchor engagements include EPA's Second Prospective Analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, NOAA's Deepwater Horizon NRDA and DIVER data platform, NYSERDA's Clean Transportation portfolio evaluations, the California Energy Commission's EPIC program benefits analysis, EPA's Climate Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA), and the Vermont Climate Superfund cost assessment. The firm is privately held, principal-owned, and operates with a distributed remote workforce across 13+ U.S. states plus Canada.

IEc's proprietary technology includes the DIVER web-based NRDA data platform (built on Pentaho BI for NOAA), the GIS-based Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan entanglement model (for NMFS), EPA BenMAP-CE configurations with FASOM integration for Clean Air Act benefits modeling, a 25-method toolkit for the California EPIC program, and a suite of climate, water, GHG, and stochastic decision-support applications. The firm differentiates through decades-long federal client relationships, embedded analytical systems that are part of ongoing rulemaking and restoration programs, a grow-from-within talent culture in which four-fifths of current Principals started their careers at IEc, and recognized expert-witness credibility in Federal District Court, EPA Administrative Law proceedings, U.S. Senate committees, and the International Court of Justice.

Name

Industrial Economics

Legal name

Industrial Economics, Incorporated

Website

https://indecon.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1981

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

Industrial Economics, Incorporated is a Cambridge, MA-based economic and environmental consulting firm founded in 1981, serving federal and state agencies, multilateral institutions, utilities, and corporate clients with multidisciplinary analysis spanning natural resource damage assessment, benefit-cost analysis, climate impacts, regulatory support, and sustainability services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Cambridge

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices11 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Government & Corporate Consulting Engagements: Core revenue stream from professional services consulting engagements (project-based and multi-year contracts) for federal agencies (EPA, NOAA, U.S. FWS, U.S. DOE, U.S. DOI, BOEM), state agencies (NYSERDA, California Energy Commission, California Air Resources Board), international organizations (World Bank Group, Climate Investment Funds, Global Environment Facility, UNU-WIDER), and private-sector clients.
2. GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contracts: Government contract revenue via GSA Schedule Contract 47QRAA20D0044 under SIN 541620 (Environmental Consulting Services) and SIN 541611 (Management and Financial Consulting, Acquisition and Grants Management Support, and Business Program and Project Management Support). Pricing is set on the formal GSA price list and used for streamlined procurement by government buyers.
3. Expert Witness & Litigation Support Services: Testimony and consulting services provided in Federal District Court, EPA Administrative Law proceedings, state courts, U.S. Senate committees, and International Court of Justice proceedings. Includes economic benefit, ability-to-pay, financial damages, natural resource damages, and fraudulent conveyance analyses.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

IEc is a Cambridge, MA-based economic, scientific, and policy consulting firm that delivers multidisciplinary analysis to government agencies, corporations, utilities, international organizations, and litigators on environmental, energy, natural resource, climate, and sustainability questions. Its work spans Natural Resource Damage Assessment, benefit-cost analysis, climate impact and risk modeling, regulatory and NEPA analysis, program evaluation, sustainability footprinting and target setting, and forensic financial/penalty assessments, supported by proprietary decision-support applications such as the DIVER data system and the ALWTRP whale entanglement model.

Product overview

Industrial Economics, Incorporated (IEc) is a Cambridge, MA-based economic and policy consulting firm rather than a single SaaS product. Its offering is organized as eight integrated consulting service lines—Natural Resource Management, Public Policy Analysis, Applied Economics, Finance & Forensic Analysis, Program Design & Evaluation, Sustainability, Information Technologies & Communication, and Energy & Transportation—each comprising several sub-practice areas (e.g., under Sustainability: Footprinting, Strategic Planning and Target Setting for a Low-Carbon Future, Sustainability Program Implementation Support, and Environmental Reporting and Communications). Within these service lines IEc has developed a small number of named, client-facing systems and models that recur across engagements and are treated as standalone products: the DIVER (Data Integration, Visualization, Exploration and Reporting) data portal built for NOAA's Natural Resource Damage Assessment program, and the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP) Entanglement Model maintained for the National Marine Fisheries Service. The service lines function as the firm's portfolio of capabilities, while DIVER and the ALWTRP model are the most clearly named, reusable IEc-built systems.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• DIVER (Data Integration, Visualization, Exploration and Reporting) Web-based data warehouse and dashboard portal originally developed by IEc for the Deepwater Horizon NRDA and now expanded into a national NRDA case management data system for NOAA. It centralizes field data, document libraries, calendars, collaborative workspaces, and restoration project tracking; uses Pentaho's open-source BI platform to integrate response, assessment, and restoration data; and supports queries, mapping, charting, and data export. Customers are federal natural resource trustees and program staff managing complex multi-trustee NRDA cases.
• Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP) Entanglement Model Integrated GIS-based model developed and refined by IEc for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to evaluate the potential for endangered Atlantic whales (right, humpback, fin) to become entangled in commercial fishing gear. It merges shipboard and aerial sighting data from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, federal/state fishing effort data, and gear quantities to support temporally and spatially explicit co-occurrence queries and to craft gear modification rules and high-risk water closures. The customer is NMFS for use in rulemaking under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.
• Natural Resource Management Services Consulting service line spanning Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), Site Restoration & Remediation, Applied Sciences, Endangered Species, and Water Resources Management. Engagements include Fox River Restoration Planning for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under CERCLA, coordination of 100+ scientific studies for the Deepwater Horizon NRDA, and the Water Resources and Uganda's Economy study for the Uganda Ministry of Water and Environment using a Computable General Equilibrium model. Customers are federal and state natural resource trustees and international clients.
• Public Policy Analysis Services Consulting service line covering NEPA Compliance, Regulatory Analysis & Support, Climate Change, and Risk Analysis & Risk Communication. Includes the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for New York's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) and Clean Energy Fund (CEF) programs accepted by the NYS Public Service Commission on February 6, 2015, and the EPA Climate Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) project reports on physical and economic impacts of climate change in the U.S. Customers are federal, state, and international regulators and program offices.
• Applied Economics Services Consulting service line covering Natural Resource Economics, Health Measurement & Valuation, and Benefit-Cost Analysis. Includes the Second Prospective Analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments for U.S. EPA using BenMAP and FASOM, ecosystem service benefit measurement for over 7,800 California Climate Investments projects for the California Air Resources Board, and valuation of environmental damages. Customers are federal and state agencies, international organizations, and litigators.
• Finance & Forensic Analysis Services Consulting service line covering Penalty Assessments, Financial Analysis, Financial Management/Accounting/Reporting, and Economic & Financial Damages. Supports environmental enforcement with economic-benefit-of-noncompliance and ability-to-pay analyses, including management of EPA's Enforcement Economic Models Helpline and development of BEN, ABEL, INDIPAY, and MUNIPAY. Customers are environmental enforcement agencies (federal and state) and law firms in environmental litigation.
• Program Design & Evaluation Services Consulting service line covering Strategic Planning & Program Design, Measurement & Evaluation, and Reporting & Communications. Includes analysis for the California Energy Commission on the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program and NYSERDA Clean Transportation portfolio evaluations. Customers are state and federal program offices, utilities, and trade associations.
• Sustainability Services Consulting service line covering Footprinting: Energy/Carbon/Water/Waste; Strategic Planning and Target Setting for a Low-Carbon Future; Sustainability Program Implementation Support; and Environmental Reporting and Communications. Conducts GHG Protocol-compliant Scope 1, 2, and 3 inventories, SBTi-aligned target setting, TCFD risk analysis, and CDP/GRI/SASB/SBTN/TNFD reporting for corporate and public-sector clients. Customers are corporate sustainability and ESG teams across multiple sectors.
• Information Technologies & Communication Services Consulting service line covering Data Management, Decision Support Tools, Spatial Analysis/GIS, Graphic Design, and Survey Research. Includes DIVER data system development for NOAA, the ALWTRP whale entanglement model for NMFS, and machine-learning-based satellite imagery analysis. Customers are federal and state agencies requiring custom analytical platforms and decision-support tools.
• Energy & Transportation Services Consulting service line covering Utility Proceedings, Energy Market and Policy Analysis, Program Design & Implementation, Program Evaluation, and Public Health Impacts. Includes NYSERDA Clean Transportation Portfolio Evaluations, NYSERDA Analysis of Microgrid Projects (80 microgrid feasibility studies), and CLCPA disadvantaged-communities barriers analyses. Customers are state energy agencies, utilities, and transportation regulators.

Quantifiable outcome

• Up to 9% per capita GDP increase projected for Uganda by 2040 from increased spending on water and environmental management (per Computable General Equilibrium modeling).
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers14 records

Segments6 records

Ideal customer profiles6 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability6 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

15 partnerships are on record, tiered minor, core and flagship.

• Resource RefocusminorImplementation/ SI/ Consulting PartnerResource Refocus served as subcontractor to IEc on three mixed-methods residential energy code compliance evaluations for the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (Idaho, Montana, Oregon). Role includes collaborative data collection and analysis for NEEA code studies.
• North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium (NARWC)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIEc worked with NARWC to compile shipboard and aerial survey data showing the seasonal distribution of right, humpback, and fin whales for inclusion in the integrated ALWTRP whale entanglement model. Data is a key component of the model that supports NMFS rulemaking.
• U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)coreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorIEc holds GSA Multiple Award Schedule Contract 47QRAA20D0044 under SIN 541620 (Environmental Consulting Services) and SIN 541611 (Management and Financial Consulting, Acquisition and Grants Management Support, and Business Program and Project Management Support). Formal price list available via GSA eLibrary. GSA contract allows government buyers to procure IEc services in weeks rather than months.
• Pentaho (open-source Business Intelligence platform)coreTechnology or IntegrationIEc developers used Pentaho's open-source Business Intelligence platform as part of the DIVER (Data Integration, Visualization, Exploration and Reporting) system for NOAA, integrating response, assessment, and restoration data from the Deepwater Horizon NRDA. Pentaho enables data warehouse and dashboard functionality for the public DIVER sites.
• National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)flagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerUnder contract to NMFS, IEc has developed and refined an integrated model to evaluate the potential for endangered Atlantic whales to become entangled in commercial fishing gear in support of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP). Over the last decade, NMFS has used the model to craft rules for gear modifications and closures of high-risk waters. IEc is currently upgrading the model to a new software platform.
• Forest and Agricultural Sector Optimization Model (FASOM) developerscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerIEc coordinated with the developers of FASOM to estimate the value of changes in plant growth (agricultural crops and timber stands) affected by ozone exposure, as part of the Second Prospective Analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments for the U.S. EPA.
• State of Colorado Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality AuthorityminorOthersTopher Lewis (Senior Technical Consultant at IEc) served on the Board of Directors for the State of Colorado Cherry Creek Basin Water Quality Authority from 2013 to 2025.
• Educational Community FarmminorOthersGail Coad (Senior Consultant) serves on the Board of Directors of the Educational Community Farm, which supports one of the oldest Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms in the United States.
• Mount Grace Land Conservation TrustminorOthersJoan Meyer (Senior Fellow) is a member of the Board of Directors of Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, an organization dedicated to protecting agricultural, natural, and scenic lands in northern and central Massachusetts.
• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) — Forensic and Valuation ServicesminorOthersChiara Trabucchi is a member of the AICPA Forensic and Valuation Services practice section.
• Roger Williams University School of LawminorOthersChiara Trabucchi serves as Adjunct Professor at Roger Williams University School of Law.
• United Nations University — World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerKenneth M. Strzepek is a non-resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. UNU-WIDER is referenced as an energy-evaluation client of IEc alongside the World Bank Group, Climate Investment Funds, Global Environment Facility, and ClimateWorks Foundation.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global ChangecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerKenneth M. Strzepek is a Research Scientist at MIT's Joint Program on Climate Change; Charles Fant completed a 3-year post-doctoral fellowship at MIT with the Joint Program for Global Change funded by NSF and UNU-WIDER. MIT is referenced as a host institution supporting climate-impact modeling for IEc projects.
• European Commission Expert Group on Nature CreditsminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerNina Gal represents IEc on the European Commission's Expert Group on Nature Credits, contributing to development of a high-integrity nature credit market under the Commission's Roadmap towards Nature Credits (IP_25_1679).
• Practicing Law Institute (PLI)minorGTM or Marketing PartnerAngela Vitulli is recurring faculty at PLI's annual program "ESG: What It Means for Boards, Management, and Counsel" — co-marketing ESG expertise to legal and corporate audiences.

Scale indicators14 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Berkeley Research Group: Expert consulting firm with strong environmental, energy, and forensic economics practices. Directly comparable on expert witness testimony, NRDA damages, financial/economic analysis for litigation, and energy market disputes.
• Charles River Associates: Global economic consulting firm with substantial energy, environment, and financial services practices. Comparable on expert witness, NRDA damages analysis, regulatory economics, and benefit-cost analysis for litigation and regulatory matters.
• Abt Associates: Research and consulting firm with deep federal contracting in environment, energy, climate, and social policy. Competes with IEc on impact evaluation, environmental economics, and program assessment for agencies such as EPA and HUD.
• ICF International: Public global consulting firm with a large energy, environment, and infrastructure practice that competes with IEc for federal contracts (EPA, NOAA, DOE), state agency program evaluation, and climate advisory work. Comparable on services, larger on scale.
• RTI International: Non-profit research institute with a sizeable environmental, energy, and international development consulting practice. Overlaps with IEc on climate impact assessment, energy program evaluation, and natural resource economics for federal and multilateral clients.
• The Cadmus Group: Headquartered near Boston (Waltham, MA), Cadmus is a comparable-sized private environmental, energy, and sustainability consulting firm serving federal, state, and international clients. It competes directly with IEc on energy program evaluation, climate impact analysis, and sustainability strategy.

Broad incumbents

• Tetra Tech: Public engineering and environmental consulting leader with deep federal contracting (USAID, EPA, USACE). Overlaps with IEc on water resources, climate adaptation, NEPA analysis, and natural resource management at significantly larger scale.
• Environmental Resources Management (ERM): Largest pure-play global environmental, health, safety, and sustainability consulting firm. Competes with IEc on corporate sustainability, ESG/TCFD reporting, climate risk, and environmental impact assessment for private-sector and government clients; much broader geographic and service footprint.
• Booz Allen Hamilton: Large federal contractor with a growing climate, environment, and energy practice. Competes with IEc on multi-disciplinary federal climate, NEPA, and clean energy engagements through much larger bench and prime-contractor scale.

Emerging players

• Resources for the Future: Independent, nonprofit research institution focused on environmental, energy, and natural resource economics. Adjacent to IEc on applied economics, climate impact modeling, and policy analysis; overlaps through shared authorship, IPCC involvement, and federal advisory work.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/industrial-economics

Compliance2 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles16 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Industrial Economics