Mary de Wysocki, senior VP and chief sustainability officer, Cisco Systems
Among de Wysocki's key statements from that Q&A: "My primary objective as CSO is to steward environmental sustainability initiatives across Cisco. As we think about our strategy, we’re focusing on how we can decarbonize our business and embed circularity. Equally important is looking at how we can enable sustainable growth and innovation. The greatest opportunity is on helping our customers, partners, and other stakeholders decarbonize their business and embed circularity. Cisco’s technology and ecosystem can play a significant role in the twin transition to a digital and low-carbon economy."
That journey toward sustainability, de Wysocki added, must be authentic, transparent, and data-driven.
The efforts don't end there. The timeline below, updated regularly, further explains Cisco's sustainability strategy, key milestones, customer engagements, partner integrations and more. Check back regularly for updates.
December 2024: Sustainability Strategy Updates
Networking and IT Services: Cisco is now publishing life cycle assessments (LCAs) for some of its hardware products. The LCAs estimate a product's environmental impact associated with its production, transport, use, and end-of-life.
November 2024: Sustainability Strategy Updates
Startup Funding - E-Waste Reduction: DEScycle, a startup that recycles metal from electronic waste, has raised €12.2 million (US$12.8 million) in Series A funding. BGF and Vorwerk Ventures led the round. Cisco Investments, Kadmos Capital, and Nesta also participated as new investors.
Partner of the Year - IT Services: For the second consecutive year, Cisco named Logicalis as its global sustainability partner of the year. Key Logicalis focus areas include circular IT solutions, sustainable network transformation, smart buildings and sustainable managed services.
Partner Program - IT Solutions and Services: Cisco plans to overhaul its partner program to help partners "power AI workloads anywhere, and keep their organizations secure, resilient, and high-performing." Much of the Cisco 360 Partner Program announcement focused on AI, security and networking. The company did not mention energy management or sustainability in the launch statement.
September 2024: Sustainability Strategy
Climate Week NYC: At the conference, multiple Cisco executives described how the company's products are becoming "more energy efficient, as well as modular, recyclable, and reusable (that is, circular)," delivering benefits that can "cascade across industries, countries, and continents."
August 2024: Sustainability Strategy
Partnership - Smart Buildings:Cisco Systems and Honeywell have reinforced their smart building partnership to help customers improve energy efficiency while reducing carbon emissions.
Funding - AI Startup: --Groq, a potential Nvidia rival, has raised $640 million in Series D funding at a $2.8 billion valuation. BlackRock Private Equity Partners led the round, with participation from Neuberger Berman, Type One Ventures, Cisco Systems, Global Brain's KDDI Open Innovation Fund III, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Honorees:SustainableIT.org, a CIO-led nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing global sustainability through technology leadership, announced the honorees of the 2024 SustainableIT Impact Awards. The awards recognize "outstanding contributions to technology-driven sustainability across Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) categories," the organization said. Honorees from the technology and IT services sectors included Cisco Systems, Cognizant, NTT Data Group and Rackspace, among others.
April 2024: Sustainability Strategy
IT and Solar Power: Cisco and Morgan Solar are testing a renewable energy solution that powers collaboration and meeting spaces. The solution involves Morgan Solar’s Energy Blinds, Cisco’s Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) switch, and Webex. Early tests produced up to 50W of renewable energy per window -- enough to effectively run the pilot room’s required equipment and devices. When the room is not occupied, the system stores excess solar energy for later use.
March 2024: Sustainability Strategy
MSP Partner:Logicalis, a major managed IT services provider (MSP), is the first partner globally to achieve Cisco’s Sustainable Campus Access add-on specialization, the companies said.
February 2024: Sustainability Strategy
Partnership: Orange Business and Cisco have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a "joint action plan to help reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions," the two companies said. Four key focus areas include: (1) GHG Emissions Trajectory; (2) Carbon Impact of Products and Services; (3) Emphasis on Circular Economy Programs and Principles; (4) Eco-designed Products and Solutions of the Future.
Denise Lee, VP, Engineering Sustainability Office, Cisco Systems
Potential Layoffs?: Cisco may have layoffs, multiple media organizations reported. We'll be listening for updates to see if the potential job cuts impact the company's sustainability and ESG teams.
Webex and Power Management: At Cisco Live Amsterdam, the company announced Low Carbon Mode in Webex. Details surfaced in a larger announcement about AI Assistant for Webex. The new sustainability tool "helps IT admins minimize non-renewable energy used to power employees’ meetings on laptops and PCs. It is designed to help companies reduce the impact of their employees’ energy usage at work through new insights from the Webex Control Hub," the company said.
Networking and AI:Denise Lee, VP of Cisco's Engineering Sustainability Office, is calling on partners to focus on "energy networking" and Power over Ethernet to help optimize power usage -- especially in the age of power-hungry AI applications.
Partner of the Year - IT Services:Logicalis was been named Sustainability Partner of the Year at Cisco Partner Summit 2023.
Cisco Partner Summit 2023: Cisco introduced various sustainability tools and guides at Cisco Partner Summit 2023. The goal: Help partners to build sustainability practices. Those practices, in turn, can assist customers with their net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions journeys.
IT Distribution, Networking and Circular Economy:TD Synnex has achieved the Cisco Environmental Sustainability Specialization for its business in Europe. Among the benefits: TD Synnex partners can plug into the Cisco Takeback incentive, which enables the free return of used hardware to be remanufactured, recycled or safely disposed of, and up to 7% discount for new products on qualifying deals. In addition, obtaining this specialization helps partners advance toward Cisco Select Partner status, the companies noted.
More: Continue to page two for additional Cisco sustainability updates & the associated channel partner implications.
Hi Brendan: Thanks for your question. I've reached out to Cisco to see if I can find the answer for you. I will update this comment if/when I receive a reply.
Hi Brendan: Cisco just replied to my inquiry. According to a spokesperson for the company: "As of last month, I can confirm we have 531 partners who have earned the ESS, certifying them for participating in Cisco’s Take Back Incentive where partners, in participating countries, are exclusively eligible for incremental discounts of up to 7% on new products, with a commitment to return customers used hardware back to Cisco."
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How many partners have earned Cisco's environmental sustainability specialization???
Hi Brendan: Thanks for your question. I've reached out to Cisco to see if I can find the answer for you. I will update this comment if/when I receive a reply.
Best,
-jp
Hi Brendan: Cisco just replied to my inquiry. According to a spokesperson for the company: "As of last month, I can confirm we have 531 partners who have earned the ESS, certifying them for participating in Cisco’s Take Back Incentive where partners, in participating countries, are exclusively eligible for incremental discounts of up to 7% on new products, with a commitment to return customers used hardware back to Cisco."
-jp