Interview: Bridgette McAdoo of Genesys on steering sustainability goals to success | Computer Weekly

A taste of the supply chain

After a chance meeting for the National Black MBA Association at a conference, Yum! Brands’ then chief sustainability officer put to McAdoo that her specific background was valuable.

“He wanted me to come in and focus on the supply chain and the ops part of sustainability for them globally. So that’s what I did,” she says.

PepsiCo spin-off Yum! includes fast food giants KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. McAdoo was tasked with looking at ways to ensure the company examined the sourcing for its products, including how foodstuffs were grown. In addition, she had a focus on external relations on sustainability issues.

“I got into social responsibility and principles from Peter Drucker. I fell in love with this idea that my work could be my legacy, working to benefit society”

Bridgette McAdoo, Genesys

McAdoo “kind of fell in love” with the topic. One partner was the WWF, so she followed that up with the non-profit role at WWF eight years later.

“They were such a strong partner,” she says. “I loved working with WWF on that intersection between the food and water organisations. So all the restaurants, hotels, anything you can think of that has a large supply chain and food and water code, Pepsi had worked with them.”

The mission was partly to help WWF counter the fact that a lot of the time, while conservation organisations want conversations and want to work with businesses, they’re deep into the science – as they should be – it can come across to profit-driven entities as impractical, she explains.

Of course, science done right is not based on flights of fancy. It can be the most practical thing ever.

But McAdoo points out that sometimes science-based organisations, perhaps especially non-profits, can include stakeholders who have never been in a business environment. There’s not a shared language to have productive conversations about how to drive practical changes or integrate them into a business.

That can end up being seen as a utopian perspective with little reference to the day-by-day realities of earning revenues and staying sustainable in the business sense.

“That’s where the disconnect happens,” she says. “So you still have to show that there’s a business case behind it. Most companies want to do the right thing, but they also have to make a profit. You have to show them that you can do both. And that’s the power of the sustainability role.”

Onwards and upwards

Moving to Genesys in late 2020 realised a new opportunity for McAdoo to progress her mission.

That meant influencing collaborative efforts targeting net zero across the company, based on validated science-based targets, by 2040. Indeed, the company’s operations achieved carbon neutrality this year, reducing emissions by 13% in 12 months versus fiscal 2024.

You have to show that there’s a business case behind [sustainability]. Most companies want to do the right thing, but they also have to make a profit. You have to show them that you can do both. And that’s the power of the sustainability role

“It’s been an absolutely beautiful ride. Night and day, people ask how you go from space shuttles to tacos and pizzas, to ‘being a panda’ (referencing the WWF logo), and into the AI [artificial intelligence] space and tech, and I always tell them it’s very intentional,” she says.

Regardless of product or sector, the overarching goals have been about ensuring knowledge and applying it. Organisations must have proper protocols and processes in place to scale responsibly. At the same time, they need to understand how employees can have a place where they feel seen and belong, while ensuring societal impacts do not hinder or harm the workplace or its growth.

“That’s the same, regardless. I’m just blessed that I get to do it at Genesys, a company 100% committed to it, top down and bottom up,” says McAdoo.

Every month or year, there’s something new to talk about when it comes to sustainability. At the same time, the role reinforces her “unwavering commitment to the work” of leaving society better than she found it.

McAdoo emphasises the need for transparency coupled with good, accurate, appropriate data, especially throughout the supply chain. For years, obtaining reliable data and information on which to base sustainability decisions, that don’t also harm a business in a two steps forward, three steps back kind of way, has been challenging. Only now is sustainability coming to the fore for many, if not all, businesses, partly as a result of CSO efforts.

It’s harder than it might sound. It’s about getting everyone to make sure they are being transparent and that the necessary supply chain information is available. It includes doing all diligence around developing and implementing guidelines that facilitate information sharing that ultimately feeds sustainability initiatives and environment, social and governance (ESG) audits.

“For any organisation, supply chain data is always going to be the hardest part, getting that transparency for your ecosystem,” says McAdoo.

Genesys has been reporting on its related strategy and measurable outcomes for almost five years now, showing “progress and momentum year on year”. That includes emissions reduction, growth in volunteerism, sustainable scalability, and sustainable design implementation and practices. This, too, has been quite intentional – it doesn’t occur by accident, she emphasises.

“We’ve integrated sustainability into our business KPIs. It’s become just an organic extension of how we work and how we grow. And it’s a passion for me whenever I get to merge my personal and professional values because of Genesys,” she says. “Because sustainability hasn’t just been an add-on. We’re not checking boxes.”

Sustaining the energy

McAdoo also says that, despite the politics of the past nine months or so – especially, as a casual observer might note, in the US – “the energy was already there” and has been sustained. The task of embedding and sustaining better policy and practice, setting goals and reporting on those goals continues. It was already embedded into how Genesys innovates and how it operates and grows.

We’ve integrated sustainability into our business KPIs. It’s become just an organic extension of how we work and how we grow

Its sustainable supply chain initiatives continue, therefore, including the implementation of strategies to tackle Scope 3 emissions and green events and internal emissions management. The work of implementing and enhancing procurement guidelines in line with ESG audits, overseen by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified offices across the globe, also continues. Three new such offices have opened in the past year – in Budapest, Riyadh and Manila.

McAdoo adds that it also means thinking seriously about AI, working with the engineering and product teams on sustainable AI by design, to avoid wasting energy, including in the cloud.

“There’s a multi-layered approach. Different things that happen across our business and across our ecosystem to ensure that we continue to reduce our emissions,” she says. “Every decision we make is measured, not just by our business outcomes, but also the impact that’s going to have, with the future in mind.”

Regional differences in applicability remain, of course, not least with respect to inconsistent or patchy regulatory frameworks. Politics does and will likely always influence reporting requirements, including around climate and the environment.

McAdoo agrees that regions and governments could work together better sometimes, accelerating emissions reduction and sustainability. But that doesn’t mean companies are taking their eyes off the ball or expect to relax their commitments. Apart from anything else, sustainability remains a differentiator for Genesys, not least because that matters to customers.

There’s often a “very precarious balance” to strike, especially for global entities that must meet the needs of customers worldwide. And there have been headwinds. Rollbacks and dilutions thus far include anticipated US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) climate rules and European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) guidelines, she notes.

“I think that’s what people were hoping was going to happen with the CSRD, and then that got rolled back with all the political changes around climate reporting and just climate in general, whether it’s in the US or the UK,” says McAdoo. “But we’re going to continue to do the work.”