Egypt waste recycling program
Sutherland · 2024 · Environment
Employees at Sutherland's Egypt operations supported the recycling of 26,724 tons of plastics, paper and organic waste, diverting the equivalent of 29 tons of solid waste from landfills.
Recycling at scale in Egypt
Sutherland's Egypt operations put waste recycling at the center of the outsourcing firm's environmental volunteering in 2024. According to the company's Sustainability Report 2024, "Employees from our Egypt operations supported the recycling of 26,724 tons of plastics, paper and organic waste, equivalent to 29 tons of solid waste being diverted from landfills."
The initiative is listed as one of Sutherland's flagship activities under its Environmental Pillar, sitting alongside recycling and composting drives in Colombia and the Philippines.
Reading the numbers carefully
The report's own figures warrant a note of caution. The Egypt narrative cites "26,724 tons" recycled, but the report's Key Performance Indicator snapshot lists total "Materials Recycled" across the company as 26,724 — expressed there in kilograms, not tons. The same snapshot records 118,008.97 tCO2e of total emissions and 2,759 kg of food waste composted for the year.
In other words, the "26,724" figure appears once as a company-wide materials-recycled total and once, with a "tons" label, attached to the Egypt program. The report does not reconcile the two, so the most defensible reading is that Egypt's employees were central to Sutherland's 26,724-unit recycling effort, which the company says diverted the equivalent of 29 tons of solid waste from landfills. We report the figures exactly as the source states them and flag the unit inconsistency rather than resolve it by assumption.
Part of a multi-country environmental push
The Egypt recycling work is one of three country initiatives Sutherland highlights under its Environmental Pillar, which the company frames around its target of "becoming Net Zero by 2040." The other two illustrate the same employee-volunteering model:
- Colombia: In partnership with Tapas Para Sanar, Sutherland Colombia recycled High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bottle caps into household products, with proceeds going to the Sanar Foundation for children with cancer. The team also launched an "EcoBot" to encourage recycling, and the report says Sutherland is among the top 10 companies collecting the most packaging in Colombia.
- Philippines: Employees recycled plastics and e-waste through a Philippine Economic Zone Authority-accredited company and ran a "Shoot That Bottle" drive. Twenty percent of collected plastic waste was handed to the Environment and Natural Resources Office of Palayan City to be converted into Ecobricks used to build fences, planter boxes and garden bases. In partnership with the PhilPlans Corporate Center building administration, 2,759 kg of food waste was composted and used on a rooftop garden.
The report also describes energy-side measures — reduced and optimized shuttle frequency to cut fossil-fuel use, and a "Beyond the Hour" campaign switching off non-essential lights one day a week to reduce Scope 2 emissions.
Egypt's wider role in Sutherland's programs
Egypt is a significant Sutherland location and features across the report's social and economic pillars, not just the environmental one. The company says its Egypt team launched a "Train-to-Hire" program to upgrade candidates' language skills and adopted the Buds of Paradise Association in Alexandria — an organization caring for disabled orphans — covering the association's monthly rent and making regular cash and in-kind donations. Egypt also hosted a job fair for people with disabilities to open industry employment opportunities, and was cited as a leading contributor to Sutherland's impact hiring of solo parents.
Why it matters
Waste and recycling programs are a common feature of corporate sustainability reporting, and their real-world impact depends heavily on the accuracy of the underlying measurement — which is exactly where this entry needs care. The direction of travel is clear and credibly sourced: Egypt employees ran a substantial recycling program that fed into the company's landfill-diversion numbers and its broader Net Zero 2040 commitment.
Sutherland's environmental posture is externally benchmarked to a degree — the report cites an EcoVadis Silver rating — which lends some independent weight to the company's sustainability claims. Still, the internal inconsistency in the headline recycling figure is a reminder that BPO sustainability disclosures are best read for their programs and partnerships as much as their round-number totals.