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2009 CSR Report – User Experience Survey

Climate change is a complex global challenge that requires an innovative and collaborative response. According to the International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2008, global energy-related GHG emissions are projected to increase by 45 percent from 2006 to 2030 if business continues as usual, with over 70 percent of the projected increase coming from the power generation and transport sectors. These projections suggest the need for significant improvements in energy efficiency and a global transition to a low-carbon economy.

Our Approach

Cisco is committed to addressing the climate-related risks and opportunities affecting its business and is well positioned to contribute to the global efforts to reduce GHG emissions. Our approach to minimizing GHG emissions spans three categories of activity:

Network-Enabled Solutions: Bringing the resources of Cisco network technologies to bear on addressing the challenge of climate change, Cisco innovates, develops, and deploys ICT solutions that displace emissions-intensive activities and reduce energy demands in critical areas of global society such as transportation, buildings, and power generation.
Efficient Products: Cisco works to improve the energy efficiency and climate-related impacts associated with product use.
Sustainable Operations: Cisco technologies are applied to our own operations, reducing our energy use and business travel, and improving energy efficiency in our facilities. We are also purchasing electricity from renewable sources.

Program Highlights

Solutions

Cisco is researching, developing, piloting, and delivering network technologies that can help reduce our customers GHG emissions by:
1. Offering low-carbon, network-enabled alternatives to traditional ways of learning, working, and traveling
2. Providing connected energy management that employs the network as the platform to measure, monitor, report, and plan for greater energy efficiency
Learn more about Cisco network-enabled solutions that address GHG emissions.
Cisco continues to engage with regulatory and standards bodies on "green standards", especially around energy efficiency of products. These bodies include: ATIS (North America), Australia and Korea MEPS, ETSI (Europe), EU/EUP (Europe), IEEE (worldwide), ITU (worldwide), METI (Japan), U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.), and WRI/WBCSD GHG Protocol (worldwide). Cisco was co-editor of the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions standard Energy Efficiency of Telecommunications Equipment: Methodology for Measurement and Reporting for Router and Ethernet Switch Products, which was released in July 2009.
Through modular design and upgrade design criteria, Cisco is working to extend product life and minimize the emissions associated with product disposal. This includes capitalizing on opportunities to maximize produce reuse and maximizing recycled commodity streams.

Operations

Cisco achieved its U.S .EPA Climate Leaders commitment to reduce Scope 1, 2, and business-air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions worldwide by 25 percent absolute by CY12 (against a CY07 baseline). Cisco's total contractual GHG emissions (Scope 1, 2, and 3) in FY09 represented: 395,944 metric tonnes of CO2e, a 40 percent decrease from our CY07 baseline. Scope 1 and 2 emissions reductions stem from applying Cisco network-enabled solutions to our own operations, working to improve power efficiency in our engineering labs and data centers, and purchasing electricity generated from renewable and non-carbon sources.
Leveraging Cisco virtual collaboration technologies which replace the need for physical travel, we reduced absolute GHG emissions from air-travel by 39 percent against a FY06 baseline, exceeding Cisco's goal for the Clinton Global Initiative.
Cisco is committed to having all new construction certified under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED ) Green Building Rating System. As of January 2009, Cisco was evaluating, designing, constructing, or applying for LEED certification for 29 buildings.

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Browse highlights of this year's CSR Report

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Download the entire text of these report sections: CSR and the Environment 1376 KB Managing Our Environmental Impacts 441 KB Minimizing Greenhouse Gas Emissions 920 KB Managing Product Materials Content 385 KB Reducing Waste 640 KB Managing Water Supplies 394 KB Minimizing Land Use and Protecting Biodiversity 47 KB