Environment

Cisco's CSR vision is to build environmental sustainability into each business function and process. We use the power of the network to multiply the impact of our technologies across our customer base, as well as to our suppliers and business partners.

Cisco EnergyWise allows organizations to monitor and control their IT equipment energy use through the network, reducing energy consumption, GHG emissions and costs. For the average customer, Cisco estimates EnergyWise can cut energy use by 20 percent.

Cisco has received top rankings for its environmental sustainability efforts:

• Carbon Disclosure Project Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index (CDLI) five consecutive years (2008-2012)
• #2 in Greenpeace's Cool IT Challenge (Fifth edition, February 2012)

Cisco has also been recognized by Corporate Knights, Forbes Magazine, and Interbrand for its commitment to sustainability.
Our global presence allows us to play an important role in environmental sustainability on many levels. We:

• Lead by example by reducing energy use and GHG emissions throughout our operations, and encouraging our vendors and business partners to do the same
• Foster transparency and provide complete, accurate, and timely environmental impact reports
• Promote environmental standards, such as ISO 14001, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), and GHG Protocol
• Encourage dialogue about environmental issues among our customers, analysts, and non-government organizations (NGOs)

Read more starting on page F5 of the Cisco 2012 CSR Report (PDF).

The largest section of our annual Corporate Social Responsibility report details our environmental initiatives and performance. Our reporting includes information on our environmental management system, materiality, material usage, energy and GHG emissions reduction, water use, biodiversity, land use, gaseous and liquid effluents, and waste from operations and product end-of-life.

Cisco has completed two GHG emission reduction goals:

1. September 2006: Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) commitment to reduce GHG emissions from all Cisco business air travel worldwide by 10 percent absolute (FY06 baseline). This goal was met in 2009.
2. June 2008: EPA Climate Leaders commitment to reduce all Scope 1, 2, and business-air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions worldwide by 25 percent absolute by CY12 (CY07 baseline). Both parts of this goal were met in 2012.

In January 2013, Cisco announced a new set of five GHG-related reduction goals:

1. Reduce total, Cisco, Scope 1 and 2, GHG emissions worldwide by 40% absolute by FY2017 (FY2007 baseline).
2. Reduce total, Cisco, operational energy use per unit of revenue by 15% by FY2017 (FY2007 baseline).
3. Reduce Cisco's FY2017, net, consumption-weighted, electricity emission factor to half of the latest IEA world average emission factor publicly available before the end of FY2017.
4. Use electricity generated from renewable sources for at least 25% of our electricity every year through FY2017.
5. Reduce Cisco, business-air-travel, Scope 3 emissions worldwide by 40% absolute by FY2017 (FY2007 baseline).

Cisco also has an ongoing initiative, with accompanying goals, to encourage our suppliers to report their Scope 1 and 2 emissions to Carbon Disclosure Project. The status of existing, supplier reporting goals is:

1. Contract manufacturers, Tier 1 partner: 100% of spend report to CDP (Goal = 100%)
2. Approved Vendor List (AVL) components, Tier 2 partner: 80% of spend report (Goal = 80%)
3. Global transportation, Tier 1 partner: 93% of spend report (Goal = 90%)

We will continue to meet these existing goals and add new categories of suppliers and CDP-reporting goals to our performance reporting.

Read more starting on pages F14 and F20 of the Cisco 2012 CSR Report (PDF).

About 90 percent of Cisco product-lifecycle GHG emissions are from the product-use phase. Therefore, we focus on designing our products, and their power supplies and ASICs, to be energy efficient.

Cisco also offers solutions to help our customers reduce their power consumption and GHG emissions.

• Remote collaboration technologies like Cisco WebEx, Cisco TelePresence, Cisco Unified Communications, Cisco Virtual Office and Cisco OfficeExtend to reduce the need for business travel and employee commuting.
  
  From FY07 to FY12 our own air travel emissions dropped by about a third in absolute terms using these Cisco technologies. In FY12, our employees used Cisco WebEx and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace to support 23.4 million people-hours of meetings, both internally and with our customers and other stakeholders.
  
  As of the end of FY2012, more than 20,000 Cisco employees had turned their homes into virtual Cisco offices with enterprise-class, secure access to voice, data and video.

• Cloud computing technologies, including hosted cloud solutions, hardware virtualization, unified computing, and unified switching fabric, to improve utilization of data center resources,
• Cisco EnergyWise technology to allow businesses to monitor and more efficiently control energy use of network-enabled equipment,
• Cisco Connected Workplace, to reduce our real estate footprint through increased utilization of office space,
• Smart Grid technology, which allows utilities to better measure, monitor, and manage their electricity grids, while facilitating renewable electricity generation and the electrification of personal-owned vehicles,
• Integrated solutions to pressing global problems through our participation in initiatives like Smart + Connected Communities and the Planetary Skin Institute.

Read more starting on page F32 of the 2012 Cisco CSR Report (PDF).

Our trade-in and take-back recycling programs provide our customers a no-cost way to safely manage their electronic waste. We repair and reuse, or recycle, essentially 100 percent of the electronics we receive from our customers.

Read more starting on page F42 of the 2012 Cisco CSR Report (PDF).