Sustainability and Circularity Matters - Contact Center Growth Opportunities under the ESG Umbrella

Sustainability has become an important company mandate and competitive differentiator, driven by demand from customers, investors, and employees. Increasingly, contact center (CC) suppliers are publishing environmental, societal, and governance (ESG) reports detailing internal progress on the United Nations' Sustainability Design Goals (SDGs) and promoting these to customers and supply chain partners. This is particularly timely, given that the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opening to further sustainability goals by accelerating the movement to the cloud, remote work, and the digital transformation.

As an industry, CC solution providers have 4 common core SDGs:

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 9: Industry Innovation and Infrastructure
• SDG 13: Climate Action
• SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

In addition, other SDGs have ongoing support, such as working on gender equality across a vendor’s customers and supply chains (SDG 5) or making equipment more accessible (such as agent screens) (SDG 8). Others are developed by companies in the CC space but include capabilities beyond the CC, such as having security practices/portfolios (SDG 16). Examples include:

• SDG 5: Gender Equality
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities (green buildings)
• SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

This growth opportunity study examines SDG efforts and actions solution providers in the CC industry have taken as part of broader ESG plans. It details existing ESG table stake efforts and highlights a few providers excelling in making an impact on SDGs.