Hello, and welcome to the Bureau Veritas Q3 2021 Revenue Presentation. My name is Val, and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I'll now hand you over to your host, Didier Michaud-Daniel, Group CEO, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. Thank you for joining Bureau Veritas' third quarter 2021 revenue on the webcast and on the call. François Chabas, our Group CFO, is here with me to present our results along with Laurent and Florent. During the third quarter, and still today as we speak, some regions continue to be affected by the pandemic, notably in Asia. We continue to take every possible measure to ensure the health and safety of all our employees. This is an absolute priority for the management team. In the quarter, we accompanied and helped our clients in managing their risk and in running their operations in the best possible conditions. I would like to thank once again all of our teams around the world who remain highly mobilized and proactive.
Before talking about the Q3 revenue, there have been some key developments of particular interest during the quarter. First, the strength of our organic development driven by strong underlying trends. This demonstrates again our resiliency and the benefits of our past diversification. Secondly, the strong demand for our BV Green Line of services and solutions as the focus of health, safety, quality, and environmental stewardship continues to gather momentum and prominence. Two examples as an illustration. I could have taken a lot more, of course. In Consumer Products, we have won a large social compliance contract from one of the Middle East's largest online retailers. This is covering a wide range of consumer categories from soft lines to hard goods and electronics. This confirms Bureau Veritas' leading role as a provider of ESG sustainability social solutions to online retailers.
In marine, our teams have delivered an approval in principle to Dutch renewable energy company SolarDuck for its offshore floating solar solution. This is the first time such an approval has been granted to an offshore floating solar technology. Thirdly, our entry into Euronext's CAC 40 ESG Index, which identified the 40 companies among the 60 largest listed that demonstrate the best environmental, social, and governance practices. This is a testament to our constant efforts regarding sustainability and our commitment to act responsibly in order to shape a better world. Looking now at the figures. In Q3 2021, revenue for the quarter was EUR 1.25 billion, up 8.5% year-on-year. The organic increase was 7.5%, showing a solid underlying performance with an organic revenue growth of 3.5% compared to Q3 2019 level and 3.9% year-to-date against 2019.
Among our businesses, four delivered particularly strong organic growth: Industry by 10.4%, Consumer Products by 8.7%, Buildings & Infrastructure by 8%, and Agri-Food & Commodities by 7.7%. We confirm our full year 2021 outlook, even if the pandemic still creates inefficiencies in the short term. We continue to benefit from the balanced portfolio we have established over the past six years. In the pie chart, you see the diversification benefits. First, all of our activities are fueling the growth. Each business contributes to driving the group forward. Second, our strong franchise covering all continents. In the third quarter, growth was driven across more geographies with a significant positive impact from the Americas. Our growth platform is in place across the whole of the group.
We are uniquely positioned to benefit from strong drivers such as sustainability and growing local trends requiring the expertise of a third independent party to play a role in managing operating risks. I now leave the floor to François to comment on the financial and business dynamics. François?
Thank you, Didier. Hi, everybody. Moving to the revenue bridge on page 10. As Didier mentioned, we delivered EUR 1.25 billion in the third quarter with an overall increase of 8.5%. Organic growth 7.5%, benefiting from strong underlying trends in most end markets, despite more challenging comparable in Q3 2021. The comparables will remain tough moving into the fourth quarter of 2021. The scope effect was positive 0.2%, reflecting the impact from prior year disposals, offset by the five bolt-on acquisition realized in the first nine months of 2021. During this quarter, we made the acquisition of AET France, a company specialized in laboratory testing, product development and sustainability testing for consumer goods markets.
To be noted, for the first time since 2019, forex had a positive impact of 0.8%, mainly due to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar and pegged currencies against the euro. Turning to the view by business for the quarter, four businesses delivered a strong organic performance between 8%-10%. Industry was the best performing business with organic growth of 10.4% across the board, with most regions delivering growth. The power and utility segment was a key growth driver of this portfolio. Consumer Products, 8.7%, continued its recovery, mainly led by a pickup of activity across most product categories in China. Agri-Food & Commodities, +7.7%, was led notably by a strong metals and minerals activity. Finally, Buildings & Infrastructure, +8%.
The performance was driven by the Americas as well as the Middle East and Africa. Double-digit organic revenue growth was delivered in construction-related activities, while the building and service activities achieved low single digits. In the meantime, Marine & Offshore and Certification grew organically by 2.7% and 0.8% respectively, with solid underlying trend despite, as mentioned, challenging comparables following catch-up audits in 2020. To give you more detail, let's move to the business review so that we can share with you the highlights of this quarter for each of our six businesses. First, on Marine & Offshore. The business achieved a solid 2.7% organic revenue growth in the quarter with mid-single digit growth in the core in-service activity. It was fueled by the fleet's modest growth and a continued decline in laid-up ships.
We benefited from the favorable timing of inspection. This trend will reverse in Q4. In the third quarter, the shipping market confirmed its sharp rebound, driven by the demand for container ship and the energy market. Bureau Veritas new orders achieved 6.6 million gross tons in September 2021. This brings the order book to 60 million gross tons, up 13% compared to December last year. For the Agri-Food & Commodities business, we delivered a strong organic revenue growth of 7.7% in the quarter. Two elements are worth noting. First, the oil and petrochemical trade market showed some improvement due to the higher fuel consumption and easy comparables. We saw strong demand for non-trade-related activities and value-added segments, including sustainability-driven solutions such as carbon footprint analysis for biofuel and plastic-to-oil analysis. Second element, metals and minerals. Double-digit organic growth was achieved.
Exploration and mining activity stayed strong in the quarter for all major commodities in a context of high metals and mineral prices, as you know. Moving to industry now. Industry was the best performing segment with an organic growth of 10.4%. The power and utility segment continued to be a growth driver with mid-single digit organic performance. This illustrates the good execution of our diversification strategy. In the oil and gas, the performance further improved as many projects which were put on hold finally resume. In the medium to long term, renewable energies are providing significant growth opportunities for the business. As you know, oil and gas companies are currently accelerating the shift towards cleaner energy, solar, wind, hydrogen, aiming at meeting ambitious decarbonization targets.
Bradley Construction Management, acquired by the group in the first quarter of 2021, was awarded several large contracts for solar energy construction projects in the U.S. over the quarter. Moving to Buildings & Infrastructure. The business posted a strong organic revenue growth of 8%. The group is well-positioned, thanks to three growth platforms across different geographies: North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Overall, the performance was very strong for CapEx activities, up double digits organically. For OpEx-related services, the growth was good, up low single digit organically. Again, tough comparables following a catch-up of regulatory-driven business, again, in 2020. By region, we delivered very strong growth in the Americas, led mainly by the U.S. Combination of strong dynamics for data center commissioning services, where the group has a leading expertise, and strong momentum in project management assistance for OpEx-related services.
In Asia Pacific, a slight revenue decline was recorded due to China as a result of very tough comparables following the restart of large infrastructure projects last year once the travel restrictions were lifted. However, let's bear in mind that the Chinese underlying trends are unchanged with an organic growth up 6.2% versus the last quarter three of 2019. Moving now to certification. Organic growth was 0.8% in the quarter. Again, very challenging comparables. Again, had a lot of catch up in Q3 2020 due to postponement. So it benefited from the effect of recertification deadline for several schemes. This will disappear as from Q4 2021 onwards. Within the group portfolio, double-digit growth was achieved in sustainable development and CSR, certification of organic food products, as well as supplier audits.
During the third quarter, the Bureau Veritas sustainability services grew by 11.3%, still driven notably by strong demand for Greenhouse gas emission verification and food management system certification. Finally, Consumer Products. The business continued its recovery in the third quarter with organic growth of 8.7%, mainly led by a pickup of activity in China, as I mentioned earlier. Testing activities grew strongly, while inspection and audit services have slightly declined. Many countries in Asia are being disrupted by restriction on mobility and shipping shortage issues. By geography, the growth was mainly led by Northeast Asia, with China growing double-digit. Both Turkey and Mexico have delivered very high growth and illustrated the first benefit of the group geographic diversification strategy. Conversely, activity levels were under pressure in Southeast Asian countries, essentially Vietnam, facing temporary lockdown measures since the end of August.
All in all, it's another strong quarter. While there are still uncertainties in the short term, the underlying trends and the local execution components of our operations bring confidence in our portfolio positioning. I hand back now to Didier for the outlook for the rest of the year.
Thank you, François, thank you. The excellent performance year- to- date allows us to confirm our outlook for the full year. Obviously, as commented previously, this includes of course, a slower growth in H2 compared to H1 due to challenging comps. Assuming that there are no severe lockdowns in our main countries of operation, we continue to expect to achieve strong organic revenue growth, improve the adjusted operating margin, and generate sustained strong cash flow. Our past profound transformation has been of considerable benefit on our growth pattern. Moving forward, Bureau Veritas is well positioned to benefit from strong micro drivers such as sustainability. With the 2025 strategy directions, we will capitalize on our growth platform and continue our successful journey of delivering a value creating strategy. I take this opportunity to invite you to our Investor Day on December 3rd in a virtual format.
Thank you very much for your attention. François and I are now ready to answer your questions on the call or on the webcast.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question or make a contribution on today's call, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star two. You'll be prompted when to ask your question. Again, that is star one on your telephone keypad. We do have already a few questions in the queue, and the first one comes from the line of George Gregory from Exane. Please go ahead.
Afternoon, everyone. I had a couple of questions, please. Firstly, Didier, François, I wondered if you could perhaps help us better understand the phasing into the fourth quarter. You identify a few helpful trends in the third quarter, which you expect to fade in the fourth quarter. I'm not sure if there's a way to sort of quantify those, or conversely to perhaps think about the two-year trend with Q3 3.5% ahead of 2019, which is pretty similar to the second quarter. Just any thoughts as we model the fourth quarter, please. My second question is specifically on the Consumer Products business. In the statement you talk about seeing the initial impact of disruption from either lockdown measures or supply chain. You know, is that something you saw deteriorating through the quarter, and having a perhaps greater impact in the fourth quarter? Any color there would be appreciated. Thanks.
Okay. George, thank you very much for your question. Maybe on the phasing part, François, you could answer, and I will come on the Consumer Products question.
Yes. Hi, George. Well, you know, it's now two years that comparables are an interesting science, considering that the year 2020 has been very uneven, the same for 2021. We have a tendency, even though we report of course numbers versus 2020 to look at those trends against 2019, which for us is the last normal year in terms of performance. The comment we've made on Q4 and tough comps are primarily aiming at 2020, whereas you may remember, we had a lot of catch-up, especially in the Buildings & Infrastructure of the business, where several regulatory-driven services could not be delivered in Q2 and went strongly to Q4.
The same on Certification in particular, and as well as where we started to regain traction on CPS. For me, the more interesting part is the underlying growth against 2019, which is where really we have a focus. You've seen that we've delivered more or less 5% in Q1, 3.3% in Q2, 3.5% in Q3. When we look ahead of us, you've heard that we have reiterated our guidance in terms of growth. The way you can model it into your numbers is bear in mind, in my view, two elements. The first element is the last quarter of 2019 was historically the strongest in BV history, driven by very high activity in Industry.
Don't expect, I would say, our current Q4 on Industry to be able to match that type of level on a quarterly basis. That's, I would say, lesson one. Lesson number two or key takeaway number two is the seasonality of our Marine & Offshore business, where we have benefited and to some extent, being frank with you, more than what we're expecting on a seasonality, which is of the in-service inspection. You know, that represents roughly a good 60% of what we do in Marine & Offshore, and where we have very little grasp on when the inspection takes place. This is really the client who is calling upon us to have the inspection. We had, I would say, most of the year delivered in Q3, where usually we have Q4 being more active.
To make the link with your second question on supply chain, it is not completely disconnected as ship owners want to have their ships inspected in a very short time frame because there is a scarcity of transportation. We had much more inspection regulatory year inspection done in the first three quarters than we ever had in BV history. As you know, we have one inspection per year. What you do in Q1, Q2, or Q3, you don't do it in Q4. That's mathematics. I think those two elements in mind that helps you perhaps to better project for Q4.
Okay, François, thank you very much. Now regarding the Consumer Products, first, I would like to start with the supply chain disruption. In fact, when you look at this disruption, we have a very limited impact at the group level, given our diversity of activities and geography. We are not exposed, as you know, to automotive. Meaning that the exposure to the risk linked to supply chain disruption is really not relevant for Bureau Veritas. Your point about Consumer Products and the impact was more about the fact that Vietnam, Bangladesh, these countries were on lockdown and are still locked down today. Because they were on lockdown, some supply chain moves between, notably, Vietnam and China.
In fact, some manufacturing sites moving back to China. The good news is that we have a large footprint in China. Because of that or thanks to that, we had very good performance with Consumer Products division in China because we tested a lot of products in China. As you can see, our revenue resumed very well with the Consumer Products division. We expect having quite a good year compared to 2020 in 2021 with this division.
Thank you. Sorry if I could just quickly follow up on the M&O benefit seen from inspections pulled forward. Core in-service grew, I think, mid-single digit. Excluding that effect, would you have expected it to have been more flattish year-over-year? Just trying to get a sense of the benefit you saw in that division.
Well, I think when you look at the in-service part, which represents, as I said, roughly 60% of what we do. Usually on a normal year, the driver behind the potential growth from this segment are twofold, price and volume of the fleet, right? Normally, in a normal world, I would say, it is something that is meant to grow 2%-ish on a yearly basis.
Okay. Thank you very much.
On a full year basis, I mean, right? 12 months.
Thank you, George.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Andy Grobler from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, everybody. Just a couple from me, if I may. The first one just on pricing. There's lots of discussion around inflation for most companies. I wondered what you were able to push through to your clients in terms of price increases. You mentioned something for marine just now, but across the broader group. Secondly, on B&I, kind of following on from the theme of the previous questions. That looks to have slowed a little, on a two-year stack, in Q3 versus 2019. Could you just go through why that was the case? You mentioned France in the write-up. Is there anything else that we should be aware of? Thank you very much.
Regarding B&I first, when you look at the balance that we have now between, let's say Asia, North America, which is performing extremely well, and Europe, we are very happy. If you look at our Q3 results, we are still delivering what I consider as a very good organic growth level. We are still very optimistic regarding B&I for several reasons. One of them is the fact that there will be a lot of renovation linked to the sustainable development. The investment with the European Union, as you know, which has decided to go for the Green Deal, and there will be millions, even billions, of development in Buildings & Infrastructure in Europe.
Same story in the U.S. with the infrastructure, and in China we know that the five-year plan regarding infrastructure development and energy is still going to provide a good organic growth. I am quite optimistic regarding B&I for today and for tomorrow. On the pricing inflation, it's a good question. In fact, we were very proactive in some countries. The first country where we decided to pull the price up by 4%-5% was the U.S., because in February, March, we immediately thought that the inflation could come back. We decided to push the prices proactively again by 4% or 5% with quite a good result.
Knowing that, on the pricing point, we, as we have multiple small contracts with more than 400,000 clients, we can clearly push our price up. We are doing the same thing in some countries in Europe, in particular in France and in Spain. We are really working on it and again in a proactive manner.
Thank you. Can I just ask on that, for the year where do you think price increases will average out for the group? I know there's lots of differences across the portfolio, but on average would be really useful.
It's a good question. Very good question. How to estimate it, honestly, not as easy. Giving an answer for the whole group is quite challenging. Would probably say below 2%, but we will probably give you more color at the end of the year, when we'll go deeper in the details. In particular, because we will discuss and we will, of course, give the margin that we will achieve at the end of the year, which is gonna be good news.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Paul Sullivan from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening, everyone. Just a few from me. Firstly, just on the flip side of pricing, are there any sort of signs or how would you talk about cost pressures and inflation impacting the business on the margin side or on the cost side of the business? Secondly, you talked about sort of China and the year-on-year comp there. Should we be somewhat concerned about slower China growth going forward on B&I? And could you perhaps also then finally just look into your crystal ball in terms of the Marine cycle into next year? It feels like with the order book you should have fairly good visibility into next year now. Thank you.
Of course, we will discuss the Marine in February, but I have some very good news already on the market is up and clearly we are recording good wins, in particular on LNG ships and container ships. We will give you more color in February, but this year is gonna be a good year and we know it already in terms of orders. We are already more or less at the same level, even better than last year at the end of the year. It gives you an idea of the performance that we will record this year.
We are doing a very good job with Marine, but as we are recording wins which are for more technological ships, and we will again discuss it in February, we may see the positive impact on revenue in Marine probably next year, third quarter, first quarter, not before, because again, we are talking about ships which are extremely technologically advanced. On the China growth, again, when you look at the five-year plan from Xi Jinping, you can see that there will be still a lot of investment in terms of infrastructure and energy. The underlying trend remains very solid. We achieved more than 6% in Q3 versus Q3 2020, when in fact in Q3 2020 we had already some catch-up. It's quite a good news. On the cost pressure, I don't see any cost pressure. You want to add something, François, about it? Because we had some review.
On cost, I think we are, you know, getting the same communication as many companies from the usual IS and IT suppliers are trying to increase their price perhaps more and more in a more violent way than usual. Beyond this, when you look at the cost structure of Bureau Veritas, as I'm sure you do, you know that the biggest part of our cost is personnel cost. I think we'll be happy every time those personnel costs are growing, because it means that we got more business and we need to deliver with those people. However, just wanted to have one point there. It's on salary pressure.
I think what we start to see those days is most countries, we manage to keep the salary pressure to I would say a very decent level, with one exception that goes a little bit with scarcity of resources, which is the U.S., where we start to see in some segment of our activities cost pressure. From the salary part that we have to absorb, and that's why Didier indicated we had preventively started to implement price increase in the U.S. I would say to me, if I have to really point at a situation in a country that would be the U.S. today in terms of cost pressure coming from salary.
Super. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Julien Fouché from Societe Generale . Please go ahead.
Good evening, Didier and François. Just three for me, please. Firstly, just to follow up on Consumer Products, on a two-year view, it seems that there is a bit of a sequential slowdown in Consumer Products. Excluding the lockdown measures in Southeast Asia, are there any other reasons for this slowdown? Secondly, regarding the improvement in your trade activities, do you see increasing momentum for this activity going into the fourth quarter? How should we look at this for 2022? Lastly, are you able to share with us the exit rate in September? Thank you.
Okay. I'm gonna answer your question, Julien, on the trade activity. I'm sure you are talking about oil and petrochemicals. On this one, we touched the floor, which is quite good news. As if we started, honestly not yet. The good news again is that we touched the floor, so we don't see any more deterioration. We, because of the consumption of oil, we believe that we will probably record some potential growth in the future. For the month again, we are flattish in this with this activity. On the exit rate, François, and maybe you will take the Consumer Products question.
Yes. Starting with consumer, just to set the context and ensuring we talk about the same thing, in terms of sequential growth, I don't compare to 2020 for reasons I've mentioned already, but against 2019, this is -3% in Q1, -1.7% in Q2 and -2.6% in Q3. That may perhaps be what you mentioned by deterioration. Let's be frank, I think with Didier, we were hoping, I would say , three, four months from today to be able to post a Q3, which would be back at 2019 level.
Clearly, one thing we could not see coming was the situation we had to face in Vietnam in particular, that has forced us to ship back some test assignments from Vietnam back onto the Chinese platform. With obviously, as you clearly understand, some loss of efficiency in the process, but with at heart the willingness to serve our clients to the best of our capabilities. Is it a change in trend? No. Would we be more happy if we would have been back to 2019? Yes. Are we there yet? No. Most probably, say we won't be able to close on a full quarter being back at 2019 level this year.
That's for the Consumer Products. For the exit rates, thanks for your question. Frankly speaking, I think we stopped reporting on exit rates because today they simply do not make any sense. I would say the years are complicated and sequential enough not to add another picture at some point in time. We will not disclose exit rate for September and most likely not for December.
If I can complete your answer, which was very good already, François. On the Consumer Products side, we decided, and we discussed it in the past, to move some labs from China to Vietnam and to Bangladesh to have a good footprint there. We are happy because these labs are in Vietnam and Bangladesh. Well, okay, today there is a lockdown. We hope that the situation is gonna be improving in the future and that the COVID-19 will disappear more than anything else, that these countries will not be locked down anymore. When it will be open again, we are optimistic that the samples will go back to our labs and the organic growth will resume because it's really mostly because of the lockdown of these two countries.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Please do, Julien.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Simon Lechipre from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Three questions, please. First of all, on Consumer Products, as a follow-up to one of the previous questions, you said in the statement you are paying close attention to the chip shortage, chip shortages in the technology division. So just like to better understand what sort of impact you have seen at this stage, and how do you expect it to evolve, as it looks like the chip shortage is not about to improve over the very short term. Second, on Certification, trends have accelerated in Q3 and Q4. I understand you benefited from the ISO cycle, so just to begin to understand what should be a sort of normative trend for the coming quarters.
Lastly, on the outlook and taking a first look to 2022, just looking to consensus expectations pointing to sort of mid-single-digit growth next year. Just wondering if that's something you are comfortable with. Thank you.
Okay, Simon, thank you for your question. Chips, there is no impact for us, so I cannot say more than that because it's insignificant for us. On the certification side, which is a very good question, you know, with Bureau Veritas, we are not just now an ISO 9000 type of certification body. We've decided to accelerate a lot on what we call second-party audit. We know now that with the certification regarding ESG KPIs, we have a lot of opportunities in front of us. You know that we launched the Green Line. A part of the Green Line for us is certification, and we can see an acceleration now of the demand coming from companies which committed on sustainability, ESG KPIs.
Now more and more board and final consumers are asking these companies to prove that what they self-declare is true. As an independent body, of course, we are proposing solutions now to test, audit, inspect what they declare to the market, to their board, or to their consumers. Again, you have this part of ISO 9000, which is very resilient and which is, of course, a good news for us because it is very resilient, and we have long-term contracts. We are now clearly visiting our clients, and you know that we are leader in certification and assurance, to propose our services regarding ESG, and this is clearly a trend which is accelerating very fast. On the outlook and consensus for-
If we got it right, your question was on the outlook for certification.
No, at the group level.
At the group level, okay.
For 2022.
Yeah, okay. Just to make a precision for Certification, though. As you know, and as you mentioned, there are a lot of moving pieces between a catch up from 2020 and recertification deadlines. But I would say the underlying trend, all things put aside, is mid-single-digit for this business. Q4 would be a bit smaller, but you know, all in all, mid-single digits remains the underlying trend for the business. When we look at the group, we don't give a quarterly outlook, as you know. We maintain for this year the outlook we've mentioned by the end of or in July. We get more about it by when we post our final year-end results.
Actually, my question was for 2022, when looking to consensus, basically analytics.
No, no-
Like mid-single digit growth.
No, Simon, we will discuss 2022 in February, if I may.
Thank you. We have another question in the queue, and it comes from the line of Rajesh Kumar from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Just thinking about your positioning for 2022. In terms of headcount and capacity, do you think you are well-positioned for your, you know, future growth? Or do you need to start investing sooner to basically, you know, prepare yourself for that growth? How much of that this cycle is likely to be driven by headcount versus automation? That would be quite interesting to understand. Second, when you say ESG driven growth, can you give us some color in terms of which part of ESG? So is it, you know, energy certifications? Is it you know more around upstream supply chain verification of conformity of practices? What is it that you're seeing growth in? Do you think it's a one-off revenue source or is it a recurring revenue source?
Finally, let's for a simplicity of discussion sake, assume that, you know, we end up in an inflationary world. Do you think you have sufficient pricing power to pass through inflation to clients? Or is it specific to geographies or and market segments? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much for your questions. I'm gonna start with the positioning for 2022. It's too early to talk about what could be the outlook of course for 2022, and we will communicate at the end of February regarding 2022. Now, if you think about our headcounts, our capacity today, knowing the backlog that we have, honestly, I have no worry about the fact that we will deliver 2022, and we'll give you more color in February about 2022. We decided to digitalize the company. We accelerated for sure, pushed by what happened in 2020, in particular on the remote inspections and we continue to push on remote inspection.
After when you think about our portfolio of orders, renewables, B&I and energy efficiency program and so on, we have quite a good backlog for next year. But again, we will discuss and we'll give you more color in February. Now on ESG. On ESG, it's energy, it's social audits, it's supply chain, it's recyclability of the products, it's waste management. You can see now that companies are making commitments to their board and to their consumers about sustainability. The good news is that with Bureau Veritas, 80,000 people, 140 countries, this is our job to inspect, to audit and to test. Clearly the demand is accelerating, and this is gonna be for Bureau Veritas, a huge market already and in the future.
Again, today and you can see it, our clients are doing self-declaration to agencies. It's not enough. If you look at the bonuses of the CEOs worldwide now, most of them have 10%-20% of their bonuses calculated and even LTIP, calculated with ESG results. Today, these results are not checked. Meaning that again, it is self-declaration. This will have to be audited and inspected, no doubt about it. We are touching everything. I could give you a ton of examples, because we are already consulted a lot. It could be on social audits, from suppliers in Asia, for instance, for big clients in the U.S. or in Europe.
It could be on the supply chain because we have a client and we will talk about it before the end of the year, probably in our investor day, for instance, which has asked us to inspect all his suppliers, and we're talking about a big client regarding the, his suppliers' ESG commitment. I'm thinking about another client that I met this week, which asked me about waste management, water, management. You can see that clearly, this is gonna be a great opportunity for Bureau Veritas for our Certification business. There is no doubt about it. Is it a one-off? No, it's not a one-off. I mean, when you will get a Certification contract to check, test, audit the results or the commitment, and the KPIs achievement of the companies, it will be recurring contracts.
We'll have to do that every year. Again, today companies have to report to the market about ESG results. It's gonna be long-term contract. In fact, probably more and more demanding, because risk management, because the pressure that you know regarding ESG and sustainability. No, it's not going to be one-off. The point here is to be the one, Bureau Veritas, the first on this market because the contract that we will get will be for some of them forever, as long as we deliver a good service. On the inflation and the pricing power, at the end of the day, the only answer I could give you is what's gonna be the margin at the end of the year.
If the margin is a good one, close to what we enjoyed in the past, it means that we are managing price very well, and we are doing a good job in increasing our prices to mitigate the inflation issue. We will discuss that in February, but I'm sure you can feel in my smile that it's gonna be probably good news.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Neil Tyler from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good evening. Thank you. Good evening Didier and François. Two left from me, please. One, following on from previous questions around the orders and inspection work, specifically in Consumer Products division, you mentioned that some of that has been interrupted. Is there any way that you can frame the level of business that you're achieving currently in those areas compared to 2019 year- to- date, would be helpful, just to give us an idea of the momentum in that component of yeah, of the consumer activities. Then, secondly, a specific question within Agri-Food. You mentioned that the food testing activities hadn't really delivered a great deal of momentum. Do you see that specifically as a consequence of lockdown interruptions in the areas you mentioned in the statement? Or is there a sort of wider inertia facing those activities? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. On the audit and inspection with the Consumer Products division, in fact, it is slightly down versus 2019 and not versus 2020, because it's largely up against 2020. It's slightly down, and for the simple reason that I talked about before. This is the issue with Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Thailand and these countries, and even India, where because of the situation with the COVID-19, we could not access the sites. Even some manufacturing sites, as you may know, are closed in these countries. It's exclusively because of the sanitary situation. On the food part, we had a Q3 which was a little bit weaker due to mobility restrictions in our labs, in particular, in Australia. You know that we have a large presence in Australia.
Again, the lockdown in Sydney and some big cities in Australia, but in fact, we could not. I think about Melbourne, which is our largest lab in China, in part, sorry, in Australia. We just could not because of the mobility restriction. We just could not bring the samples to this lab. Apart from that, we had a good activity level everywhere else. Again, Australia is moving progressively in the direction of not being in lockdown anymore, so we will be back to a normal situation and maybe with a little bit of upside, because for a while we could not test the samples in our labs, in particular in Melbourne, where we have a very big lab.
Thank you. That's helpful.
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jean-François Delpech from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my question. I have two. The first one on Marine & Offshore. Is it fair to assume that you currently have an extra pricing power in services because your clients are in a hurry, and so this could translate directly into margins and be a good surprise for H2? A second question is about China. Are you somehow worried by the current financial situation of large real estate companies such as Evergrande or some others? Thank you.
We are not affected by it. Again, what I decided to do in 2015 was not to be in the residential market. Evergrande is residential. Okay? We have very little exposure to this type of company in China. Again, we are working on large infrastructure project or energy project, and these are not managed by Evergrande or by another company that was mentioned.
Fantasia.
How do you-
Fantasia.
Fantasia, yeah. Even if, with Fantasia, we do nothing. Again, the good news is because we decided to move strategically in the right direction, we are not so much affected. On the Marine & Offshore, your point is valid, for sure. We will discuss that in February.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question comes from the line of Oscar Val Mas from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, Didier and François. Just one quick question from me. It's a follow-up on what Julien asked on oil and gas commodities. As you said that volumes have bottomed, but in Q2 you referred to intense price pressure in those markets. Can you just provide us an update on the price pressure in oil and gas commodities?
You are talking about oil and petrochemicals products trade, am I right?
Correct. Within Agri-Food & Commodities.
Yeah.
O&G.
Okay. There was some price pressure. There is some persistent price pressure. It has unchanged. Again, the good news is it seems that we touched the floor. As long as the demand is gonna increase, which will for sure happen because of the oil consumption and the fact that the trade is restarting progressively, the volumes will gradually improve. As long as the volume improve, of course, we will have less pressure on pricing because the demand is gonna be maybe even over the supply, because some labs, I'm not talking about Boral , were closed here and there. It's gonna be an interesting time as long as the volume is coming back. I do not see any more deterioration today.
Okay. Thank you very much, boss.
Thank you. We are done for today, I think. Okay, thank you very much for your attention. I wish you all a good afternoon and good evening.
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