As AI innovation accelerates across the cloud ecosystem, Genesys is sending a message to its peers: sustainability doesn’t have to be sacrificed for scale.
In its newly released Fiscal Year 2025 Sustainability Report (Feb 1, 2024–Jan 31, 2025), Genesys—known for its AI-powered customer experience platform—showcased a sharp focus on responsible innovation, carbon neutrality, and long-term climate goals. The report outlines how the company navigated the growing energy demands of AI development while keeping its cloud operations carbon neutral—a feat that’s increasingly rare as large language models (LLMs) become more power-hungry.
“We didn’t just grow our platform, we grew our responsibility,” said Bridgette Bell McAdoo, Chief Sustainability Officer at Genesys. The company released more than 150 new AI features during the year, including tools like Virtual Supervisor and Agent Copilot, while integrating energy-efficient practices like model compression and optimized architecture. It’s the kind of engineering mindfulness that could set a new standard in the IaaS and SaaS spaces.
But Genesys isn’t just tinkering under the hood. It’s embedding sustainability into platform-wide decisions and public commitments.
Sustainability at Scale: The New AI Mandate
As demand for AI tools skyrockets, the cloud industry faces a massive climate dilemma. Most providers either scale first and worry later or bury their environmental data behind generic net-zero pledges. Genesys is taking a different route—publishing measurable progress with third-party validation.
Key FY25 achievements include:
- A 13% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions year-over-year
- Carbon-neutral operations across the Genesys Cloud platform
- Submission of science-based targets to the SBTi
- LEED certifications for facilities in Hungary (Platinum) and the Philippines (Gold)
- A B rating from CDP—beating sector averages globally
- A third consecutive Gold rating from EcoVadis, placing it in the top 3% of assessed companies
With a target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2040, Genesys is pushing ahead of cloud-native competitors that have made bold sustainability promises without disclosing interim milestones.
Transparency + Ethics in the AI Stack
As companies layer AI deeper into CX, marketing, and workforce automation, transparency is no longer optional. Genesys updated its AI Ethics Guidelines, launched “product cards” to explain AI functionality to customers, and formed an AI Ethics Roundtable to guide internal development.
This positions the company in sharp contrast to black-box AI solutions in adjacent markets. With customer-facing documentation and energy impact considerations baked into product design, Genesys is pitching an AI platform that is not only powerful—but understandable, auditable, and more sustainable.
Impact Beyond Carbon
Sustainability isn’t just an emissions metric for Genesys. The report details how the company’s tech helped enable 16 million conversations between charities and beneficiaries through its Charitable Discount Program over the past two fiscal years.
It also highlights a 134% increase in employee volunteer hours (11,000+ hours in FY25), plus the formation of Genesys Veterans (GVET), an employee resource group supporting military families.
What It Means for the Industry
As cloud-native vendors continue racing to release new AI features, few have addressed the environmental consequences with the rigor Genesys shows here. In a sector increasingly criticized for its energy intensity, especially around LLM training and inference, Genesys’ FY25 report acts as a quiet flex—proof that sustainable cloud AI isn’t a contradiction.
By holding its cloud emissions steady while expanding capabilities, Genesys is setting a bar many hyperscalers may soon be pressured to meet. And for CIOs balancing ESG mandates with performance demands, a partner who’s already done the hard work could prove more attractive than a fast-moving innovator with a growing carbon footprint.
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