Cisco Sustainability News, Milestones, Partnerships and Net Zero Timeline

Here are additional Cisco sustainability updates & the associated channel partner implications.

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.

• 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.
• Power Purchase Agreement: Cisco has signed a 15-year agreement to purchase solar energy from EGNIS of Spanish. The plant is expected to fulfill Cisco's electricity needs in Europe for the next 15 years, Cisco said. Related: See Cisco's sustainability strategy here.
• 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.

December 2023: Sustainability Strategy

• Networking - Circular Business Practices: Cisco Systems continues to expand its circular business practices to reduce global e-waste, according to Senior VP Tim Coogan.

November 2023: Cisco Sustainability Strategy

Multiple updates...

• Podcast: Cisco VP Andrew Sage describes Cisco's sustainability strategy for partners in this podcast.

• 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.
• Cisco's Andrew Sage and Denise Lee touted sustainability as a business differentiator for partners.

September 2023: Sustainability Research

• Research - MSPs: MSPs should explore ways to offer sustainability services to their customers, according to research findings from Canalys and Cisco Systems.

August 2023: Sustainability Partnerships

• 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.

July 2023: Sustainability Research

• Sustainable Broadband Networks: Fully 65% of consumers in EMEA are now concerned about the carbon footprint of their broadband, with young people aged 18-24 the most concerned (73%), Cisco Systems research found. In addition, 77% said they would be willing to pay more for sustainable broadband, with around a quarter prepared to pay a price premium of more than 20%.

June 2023: Sustainability Strategy Milestones

Multiple updates including...

• Cisco Live 2023 Conference - Full-Stack Observability Platform: The new platform "enables a new observability ecosystem that brings data together from multiple domains including application, networking, infrastructure, security, cloud, sustainability, and business sources," the company said. The offering includes Cloud Native Application Observability to track costs and sustainability metrics. Also, an Application Resource Optimizer allows customers to manage Kubernetes workloads, and associated financial targets and sustainability goals, the company said,
• Cisco Live 2023 Conference - Sustainable Data Center Networking: The company announced new integrations for Cisco data center networking and Nexus Dashboard, which will allow customers to "gain real-time and historical insights for power consumption of all IT equipment in their data center and estimate the energy footprint of their data center operations," the company said.
• Technology Strategy Investor Briefing: In prepared comments, Executive VP Liz Centoni said: "Over the last year we've added this as one of the top priorities that our customers continue to talk to us about. As they've said that, hey, sustainability is a big part of how we operate and run our businesses, right. So what we build, whether it's in Jonathan's business, the software business, and security and observability absolutely is around how do we enable our customers' sustainability goals, including with Silicon One, more efficiency, higher bandwidth. But also we have our own sustainability goals of getting to net zero by 2040 as Scope 2 and Scope 3 get a lot more challenging than Scope 1."

May 2023: Sustainability Strategy Milestones

• Partnership - Internet of Things: NTT and Cisco Systems partnered to promote IoT (Internet of Things) as a service capabilities that help customers meet their sustainability goals.

March 2023: Cisco Sustainability and Partner Go-to-Market

• Key Partner Leader: Cisco veteran Katherine Hannah shifted to global sustainability lead for global partner and route to market sales, according to her LinkedIn bio.

February 2023: Sustainability Strategy Milestones

• Webex and Sustainability: The company launched Carbon Emissions Insights in Webex Control Hub. The software, according to the company, allows partners and customers to:
  • Estimate energy usage and related carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions from Cisco collaboration devices. The calculations are based on formulas from recognized governmental authorities such as the US Environmental Protection Agency.
  • See emissions trends over time to track progress towards sustainability goals.
  • Guide IT administrators to enable features like Webex's Office Hours to reduce their energy usage.

Cisco's Overall Sustainability Strategy

Cisco's ESG reporting hub is here. And the company's corporate social responsibility report is here.

Keep checking back for more updates to this timeline.