Build a Marketplace for ESG and Sustainability Experts

The ESG industry includes experts responsible for helping entrepreneurs and SMBs in monitoring and improving their performance in regards to Environmental, Social, and Governance factors. These experts analyse the various assets, relationships, and processes of a company and prepare an ESG report to align their operations with global sustainability goals and compliance.

The term ESG, first used in 2005 in the report ‘Who Cares Wins’ by the United Nations, has become more relevant today, especially when climate change, social inequalities, and unintentional corporate misconduct have become a major threat. Furthermore, investors are more likely to invest in companies that proactively take measures to safeguard the environment and are more inclusive, with a higher focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Considering this scenario, launching a marketplace for ESG experts can help many companies find and connect with trustworthy professionals for consultancy and ESG strategy. The development approach for an ESG marketplace includes both custom development and using a readymade software. While the custom development approach provides the most flexibility, it is also highly costly and time-consuming. On the other hand, using a readymade software can cut down the overall cost and development time by up to 90%.

Let’s discuss both approaches below, along with industry dynamics and marketplace workflow.

Why Build an ESG Experts Marketplace?

Multiple factors are backing the requirement and profitability of an ESG marketplace. Eco-conscious entrepreneurs, who aim for a sustainable future for every individual across all corners of the world, are aware of the assistance that a reliable marketplace can provide to companies in finding and connecting with the right ESG expert.

1. For ESG Integrations

For large-scale businesses, the definition of business is more than trade or commerce. To ensure a sustainable future, these businesses are required to integrate ESG values into their core business proposition. In fact, ESG needs to be a part of value chain creation to ensure that various principles and guidelines are met without any detrimental effect on climate and social spheres.

2. For ESG Investments

As stated above, ESG compliance and practices have become an essential investment factor. Modern investors are more likely to invest in eco-conscious companies that follow ESG guidelines and are proactive towards eliminating any harmful impact of their operations on the environment. Companies that follow proper inclusivity and diversity in hiring and giving equal job opportunities are also a part of this.

3. For Enterprise-Level Risk Mitigation

ESG experts can thoroughly analyse a company’s operations, policies, and relations to figure out any vulnerabilities and violations in their business. They help them avoid fines and optimize the entire value chain to prevent penalties and close risks. Ensuring ESG compliance will help businesses ensure that any violations do not deplete their profits.

4. For Engagement and Appropriate Representation

ESG efforts also require cross-department collaboration and employee engagement, fostering a culture of responsibility towards the environment. The transparent practices also establish trust in customers and help you get a loyal customer base from different backgrounds.

5. For Long-Term Resilience

Ensuring ESG compliance is not a one-time thing. Instead, to truly reduce carbon impact, preserve natural resources, and ensure social equality, ESG efforts are going to take years. Thus, hiring an ESG expert for long-term consultancy and strategy has become the need of today.

How an ESG Marketplace Works?

There are two models that an ESG marketplace can follow:

1. Direct Hiring

ESG experts can create their profile and attach various certifications and a portfolio. They can upload references, client testimonials, sample reports, and results. Corporations can explore ESG experts’ profiles and share their requirements with an expert. Once they are ready to hire, they can directly hire a expert on the ESG marketplace.

2. Bidding

Companies can share their requirements in detail, including their expectations and contract duration. They can highlight the changes they are facing or what levels of ESG consulting they require. Based on these requirements, ESG experts can validate their availability and place a bid along with a proposal or cover letter. Companies can then review those proposals and select a winning bid.

Features Required on an ESG Marketplace

For smooth operations, make sure you get the following features on your ESG Marketplace

1. Detailed profile creation
2. Direct hiring
3. Service packages
4. Job Posting
5. Bidding Management
6. Internal Messaging
7. Late Cancellation Charges
8. Split Payment
9. Discussion Forums
10. Knowledge Center
11. Company Listing
12. Conflict Resolution
13. Custom Registration Fields
14. Multi-lingual Support
15. Multi-Currency Support
16. Reviews and Ratings System
17. Commission Management
18. Content Management System
19. Admin Approval on Registration
20. GDPR compliance

Ways to Develop an ESG Experts Marketplace

1. Custom Development

The custom development approach includes developing the entire marketplace from scratch. It is very costly and time-consuming, remaining a viable option only for large-scale enterprises. However, considering the costs involved and the unpredictability of the software, custom development remains a risk even for large-scale enterprises. A few benefits that it provides are maximum flexibility and choice of tech stack. The most appropriate methods for the custom development approach are outsourcing the entire ESG marketplace development project to a third-party company abroad or hiring an in-house development team. 

Pros of Custom Development

• Provides maximum flexibility
• Choice of tech stack

Cons of Custom Development

• Too costly
• Heavily time-consuming
• Not tried and tested for the market

2. Using a Low-Code Readymade Solution

The second approach is using a readymade solution to power your ESG experts marketplace. You can find various low-code and no-code solutions in the industry, with low-code solutions providing more flexibility. This approach is faster and more cost-effective than the custom development approach and is suitable for both startup-level and enterprise-level development. Lastly, readymade solutions are tried and tested for the market, ensuring the development of a stable and market-fit marketplace.

Pros of Custom Development

• Highly cost-effective
• Faster deployment times
• Already tried and tested for the market
• Customer support and documentation are already available

Cons of Custom Development

• Do not provide the choice of tech stack
• Less flexible in comparison to custom-developed software

How Yo!Gigs Helps?

Yo!Gigs is a turnkey service marketplace solution that helps entrepreneurs in developing several types of service marketplaces. To build an ESG marketplace, it comes with all essential features right out of the box. Thus, to get started with Yo!Gigs, you aren’t required to have any programming language and can simply install the solution on your selected server. With a fully customizable theme and design elements suitable for the ESG industry, Yo!Gigs offers a highly productive and cost-effective approach to building an ESG marketplace.

Key Features of Yo!Gigs for an ESG Marketplace:

Let’s take a closer look at the key features of Yo!Gigs for your ESG marketplace.

• Job Posting: Users can post multiple types of jobs, including public jobs, private jobs, fixed price jobs, and biddable jobs.

• Direct Hiring: Under the direct hiring option, companies can review the sustainability experts’ profiles and hire them directly without having to post a job or select a bid.

• Subscription Packages: For one-time ESG consulting, companies can also review the multiple service packages prepared by the admin or service provider.

• Job Categories: To help companies navigate through the marketplace and find appropriate experts for their requirements, Yo!Gigs lets you create multiple job categories, such as climate experts, leadership experts, circular economy experts, and more. These categories also help attract diverse ESG talent to the marketplace.

• Dynamic Registration Form: With Yo!Gigs, you can create custom registration forms for onboarding sustainability experts and collect all essential information. You can add various UI elements, including fields, text, checklists, radio buttons, and more.

• ESG Experts Profile: Provide sustainability experts with the option to create a detailed service profile. On Yo!Gigs powered marketplaces, professionals can include bio, work summary, client portfolio, testimonials, language spoken, service provided, readymade service packages, hourly rate, and more.

• Online Bidding: The bidding option is helpful for companies when they want more competitive pricing or multiple hiring options. They can simply upload a bidable job, and multiple experts can review and evaluate their requirements in detail. Based on their capabilities and availability, experts can post a bid along with job proposals. Companies review all the bids and job proposals to select an ESG expert.

• Knowledge Center: The knowledge center feature allows you to create an entire repository of manuals, including FAQs and guides related to hiring, using the marketplace, your policies, and all related concerns. This module is important for providing complete support to all users.

• Discussion Forum: Apart from the knowledge center, Yo!Gigs has in-built discussion forums as well for knowledge sharing purposes. On these platforms, both experts and companies can ask ESG-related questions, share their experience, and increase knowledge. As discussion forums also help in producing User Generated Content (UGC), they indirectly assist your marketplace in achieving higher SERP rankings and establish a brand image.

• Dedicated Dashboards: For simplifying marketplace operations, Yo!Gigs has dedicated dashboards for each user type. The admin can take control of all marketplace operations through the admin dashboard, ESG experts can manage their profiles and hiring requests from the service provider dashboard, and companies can also manage their bookings and jobs from a separate dashboard.

• User Management: Managing multiple users can be a challenge on a multi-vendor marketplace. Yo!Gigs eliminates this challenge with its advanced user management features. The admin can enable admin approval on registration and see all previous orders and booking history of both experts and companies. They can also send reminders via internal messaging and check all closed bids.

• One-Click Sign-in: For easy sign-up, Yo!Gigs also provides one-click sign-in options so that sustainability experts can quickly review their bookings on the move.

• Theme Customization: With Yo!Gigs, you can get the look and feel you want on your marketplace. From the color palette to font family, Yo!Gigs comes with fully customizable designs. You can also create and save new themes for approval and later usage.

• Homepage Management: Along with themes, Yo!Gigs also lets you customize the entire homepage. From adding new content blocks and slider settings to reshuffling sections and managing header and footer navigation, the possibilities with Yo!Gigs are limitless. 

• Conflict Resolution: Sustainability experts and companies may enter into conflicts due to unpredictable issues related to work quality, delivery, and payments. To help users with such conflicts, Yo!Gigs provides them with the option to request admin assistance. The admin can help mediate the issue to the best of their capabilities. 

• SEO Management: For helping you achieve higher rankings on Google Search Engine pages, Yo!Gigs comes with built-in SEO management features. You can optimize the meta description, meta title, alt tags, image tags, and much more. Additionally, the site architecture of the entire system is also SEO friendly to ensure your efforts produce the right results.

• Commission Settings: Yo!Gigs also lets you manage your commission rate at two levels: user level and global. You can set up a percentage commission rate, which will be levied automatically during checkout.

• Multi-Lingual Support: To provide a more native experience to all users and target multiple regions, Yo!Gigs comes with multi-lingual support.

• Multi-Currency Support: Along with multi-lingual support, Yo!Gigs has multiple payment gateways and currency options to help establish trust and a brand name in different regions. 

• Reviews and Ratings: To build the credibility of sustainability experts and companies, Yo!Gigs lets them rate and review each other. These reviews also assist other users with decision-making, and good reviews help sustainability experts secure more jobs.

Impact Maker – A Modern ESG Marketplace Powered by Yo!Gigs

Impact Maker is a modern ESG experts marketplace developed with the help of Yo!Gigs. When the client reached out to us, they envisioned a centralized platform for sustainability talents who could help the corporate world with all their ESG requirements.

We closely analyzed their requirements and also carried out essential customizations to provide 100% support for ESG marketplace operations. We added support for a hybrid business model, inclusive of direct hiring, job posting, and bidding, and also revamped the design to give a more professional, trustworthy, and welcoming feel to sustainability experts. 

Key Features Deployed in Impact Maker

• Dual Search
• Job Posting
• Online Bidding
• Custom Registration Forms
• Custom Task Categories
• Discussion Forums
• Knowledge Center
• Conflict Resolution
• Multi-lingual Support
• Commission Settings

How to Get Started with Yo!Gigs

There are 4 simple steps to get started with your ESG marketplace project with Yo!Gigs:

1. Obtain Yo!Gigs License

Get in touch with our experts to obtain the lifetime usage license of Yo!Gigs. The license is available at a one-time cost and is valid for a single domain.

2. Setup and Installation

Our experts will reach out to you and install Yo!Gigs on your preferred choice of server.

3. Configure your Marketplace

Configure all primary pages and settings, such as the color scheme, brand trademarks, payment gateways, bank accounts, social media handles, and more.

4. Promote and Manage

Promote your ESG experts marketplace to onboard ESG experts and manage marketplace operations with the help of Yo!Gigs’ in-built features.

Other Reasons to Select Yo!Gigs

Other key reasons to select Yo!Gigs to build a marketplace for ESG and sustainability experts include:

1. Self-Hosted Solution

Yo!Gigs is a complete self-hosted solution that provides you with complete control over your hosting server. You can either host the solution on your in-house server or opt for a fast and secure third-party hosting service.

2. Available at a One-Time Cost

Unlike SaaS solutions that charge never-ending recurring charges and force you to upgrade your package to grow, Yo!Gigs is available at a one-time cost. It has no vendor lock-in periods, and you can switch to any other solution anytime you want without losing access to Yo!Gigs.

3. Fully Scalable and Customizable

Yo!Gigs also comes with a fully scalable and customizable architecture. You can add custom features, third-party integrations, and revamp the design and workflows depending on your business model.

4. Unlimited Job Postings, User Profiles, and Transactions

Yo!Gigs supports all stages of business growth. Right from the startup stage to the enterprise stage, it can support your marketplace operations. Its unlimited job postings, user profiles, and transactions ensure that you never have to reinvest in technology because of growth limitations.

5. 12-Months of Free Technical Support

To ensure you with complete peace of mind and uninterrupted marketplace operations, Yo!Gigs also comes with 12 months of free technical support. We will resolve any technical bugs and errors in the source code totally free of charge.

Conclusion

With the increasing need for ESG consulting, a marketplace platform with a huge network of sustainability experts will definitely help fulfill the needs of the corporate world. The primary confusion comes in selecting the right software and development approach. Even if you do develop the marketplace, onboarding sustainability experts would be the next problem in line. All these problems can be resolved with effective planning and a solution that supports your vision. 

In the blog, we discussed how self-hosted solutions can be the right choice for your marketplace operations. With lifetime ownership and one-time costs, they are highly scalable and come with a wide range of features to assist operations. To learn more, we recommend taking a personalized demo of the solutions and getting better ideas of how these solutions align with your requirements.