Planetary Skin

(R&D Program)

Public and private sector leaders have agreed that in addition to appropriate target setting and predictable large-scale financing, meeting the challenges of climate change will require the creation of transparent and trusted mechanisms for monitoring, reporting, and verifying changes to environmental conditions.

Planetary Skin is a cross-sector partnership to develop a collaborative, online, global monitoring system that captures, collects, analyzes, and reports data on environmental conditions around the world. Planetary Skin will increase decision-making capabilities and provide a platform for open collaboration between public and private sectors around the challenge of climate change. Collecting data from space, airborne, maritime, terrestrial, and people-based sensor networks and other sources of structured and unstructured data, Planetary Skin will help model, analyze, and report on environmental conditions in a standardized usable format over an open and adaptable cloud computing platform that is governed as a global public good.

Planetary Skin will be developed based on the fundamental scientific and other research and development strengths of a number of world-class global institutions. The Planetary Skin R&D Program will focus on codeveloping three core capabilities:

• Manage resources (such as energy, biomass, food, water, and land) productively and effectively
• Manage risks such as climate change related risks in sea level rise affecting coastal infrastructures, drought-related crop yield reductions, and disease proliferation and pandemics
• Enable new environmental markets for carbon, water, biodiversity, and other resources

For more information, visit:
www.planetaryskin.org

Connected Urban Development

(R&D Program)

As a result of our commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, Cisco has partnered with select cities around the globe to reduce global carbon emissions while simultaneously promoting economic development by fundamentally changing the way cities operate and use natural resources. Networked architecture, applications, devices, and online services are fundamental to the Connected Urban Development (CUD) vision and approach. The integration of mobility, work, buildings, energy, and citizen services with information provision and dynamic decision making for city planners and authorities presents a unique opportunity for cities to operate more intelligently.

Pilot projects underway in Amsterdam, San Francisco, Seoul, Birmingham (U.K.), Hamburg, Lisbon, and Madrid are proving the power of network technologies to reduce carbon emissions in urban environments by addressing service delivery, traffic management, public transportation, real estate, and carbon footprint monitoring tools.

In 2006, Cisco committed $15 million to the CUD program over a five-year period, and we report on this commitment annually to the Clinton Global Initiative. In 2008, the European Commission recognized the program as a Benchmark of Excellence in its Covenant of Mayors program, and in 2009 CUD has become an official partner of Sustainable Energy Europe.

Cisco has developed a CUD Solutions Toolkit that includes lessons learned, best practices, economic and environmental value case models, and CUD project outcomes.

For more information, visit:
www.connectedurbandevelopment.org

Smart+Connected Communities

(Customer Solution)

Cisco has launched the Smart+Connected Communities initiative globally to leverage the thought leadership, ideas, and solutions incubated by the CUD program and drive economic, social, and environmental sustainability to our customers around the world. Through a holistic approach with solutions, services, learning academies, and an ecosystem of partners, Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities initiative will leverage the network to deliver integrated offerings across real estate, transportation, safety and security, utilities, health, education, and government to improve community management, economic growth, citizen quality of life, and sustainable development.

Smart+Connected Communities is our newest initiative, launched in FY09. Building off the innovations of the CUD program, we believe our Smart+Connected Communities initiative will demonstrate similar positive impact on a larger scale.

SmartGrid

(Customer Solution)

This network infrastructure helps utility companies construct "smart grids" that optimize power supply and demand by routing power more efficiently and allowing demand-side management and two-way, real-time information exchange with customers. This information is critical for implementing dispersed renewable generation and adding hybrid/electric vehicles to the utility grid. Combined with smart meters, smart grids also allow customers to see how power is being used in order to influence behavior to reduce energy consumption or shift demand in time to permit use of lower-carbon sources of electricity.

Pilot projects including one sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest Laboratory have shown a 10-15 percent reduction in household energy use with smart grid technologies. Cisco is partnering with General Electric, Florida Power & Light, and Silver Spring Networks on "Energy Smart Miami," a pilot to build out the most comprehensive smart grid deployment in the nation. Cisco is participating in the "Pecan Street Project" to make the city of Austin, Texas, a test bed for clean energy and the smart grid goals. Cisco is also a member of the GridWise Alliance, advocating for the adoption of smart grid technologies. To learn more, visit Cisco's website.

Cisco EnergyWise

(Customer Solution)

Cisco EnergyWise is an energy management technology that allows organizations to report and reduce the energy use of their IT resources. Cisco EnergyWise is embedded into the Cisco Catalyst® switching portfolio and helps improve operational efficiency and reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions across the corporate infrastructure, potentially impacting any powered device.

Cisco EnergyWise won the Best of Interop 2009 award in the Green category for leadership in improving corporate energy efficiency and lowering operational costs with its energy-management architecture. For the average size Cisco customer, EnergyWise could reduce energy usage by 20 percent in the first phase of the Cisco EnergyWise deployment and realize significant cost savings.

Smart Connected Buildings

(Customer Solution)

Cisco's Smart Connected Building systems transform the way buildings are built, operated, and experienced by integrating building systems (like HVAC, lighting, and elevators) with the IP network. This helps companies reduce energy consumption across global operations and enables demand management on a global scale. These solutions have benefits beyond reduced energy consumption. For example, Building Mediator, a product in the Smart Connected Buildings portfolio, enables faster notification and diagnosis of faults, enabling maintenance staff to pinpoint and properly diagnose problems.

Cisco's Smart Connected Buildings solutions are well positioned to help customers achieve significant reductions in GHG emissions by being able to access a broad range of the energy consuming systems, analyze the data from these systems, and then act on that data to reduce energy use. Early adopters have experienced a 25 percent reduction in energy consumption by optimizing the interactions of building systems.

Cisco Connected Workplace

(Customer Solution)

Cisco Connected Workplace is a flexible work environment designed to support employee mobility and improve collaboration by providing a variety of workplace settings and enhanced technology tools. Taking advantage of the fact that workplaces today are vacant up to 60 percent of the time because people are working away from their desks, collaborating formally and informally in person, and using rich remote technologies such as Cisco WebEx and Cisco TelePresence.

Cisco Connected Workplace case studies show reduced costs associated with real estate, furniture, workplace services, and IT infrastructure. Such environments typically support 40 percent more employees than a traditional layout, thereby substantially reducing footprint demands and associated costs.

Data Center Virtualization

(Customer Solution)

Power and cooling are two of the biggest issues that data center managers and IT organizations face. Data center virtualization improves the utilization of data center equipment, reducing emissions from the manufacture of unnecessary equipment and facilities.

According to a Forrester Consulting study Cisco commissioned in 2008, firms initially deployed virtual servers to improve hardware utilization, allowing them to greatly reduce their server purchasing. But today these firms cite improved power and cooling efficiency as important motivators for adopting virtualization technology. Cisco data center solutions achieve resource savings of up to 70 percent through virtualization.

Cisco TelePresence

(Customer Solution)

Incorporating high-quality spatial audio and video, Cisco TelePresence enables live, face-to-face interactions over the network, reducing the need for travel to in-person meetings and allowing for faster decision making. It has the potential to greatly decrease the need for business travel and the associated GHG emissions.

By the end of FY09, over 170 Cisco TelePresence units had been installed across our company in more than 21 countries.

For more information on how we are using Cisco TelePresence to reduce our GHG emissions, see Sustainable Operations in our CSR Report.

Cisco WebEx

(Customer Solution)

Cisco WebEx offers the ability to host dynamic web-based meetings, stimulating real-time collaboration without the need for travel to one location. Designed to enable people anywhere in the world with an Internet connection to connect and collaborate efficiently, Cisco WebEx helps save the time, money, and GHG emissions associated with traveling to meetings in person.

In 2009, there were more than 3 million registered users of Cisco WebEx, hosting an average of over 200,000 meetings each day. More than 10 million meeting participants connect through WebEx each month.

For more information on how we are using Cisco WebEx to reduce our GHG emissions, see Sustainable Operations in our CSR Report.

Cisco Virtual Office

(Customer Solution)

The Cisco Virtual Office solution boosts flexibility and productivity and extends the enterprise by delivering secure, rich, and manageable network services to teleworkers and employees working outside the traditional office environment. By providing full IP phone, wireless, data, and video services, Cisco Virtual Office offers a smooth, office-caliber experience to staff, wherever they may be located. This solution helps limit the emissions associated with travel and enables energy savings for office buildings and real estate.

More than 16,000 Cisco employees use Cisco Virtual Office. Based on a FY09 Teleworker Survey of Cisco employees, the average user gains 2.4 hours per week by reducing commute time and saves approximately 23 travel miles per day. On average, this equates to over 19,000 metric tonnes of avoided CO2 emissions annually. In addition, the majority of teleworkers report a significant increase in work-life flexibility, productivity, and satisfaction as a result of their ability to work remotely.

For more information on how we are using Cisco Virtual Office to reduce our GHG emissions, see Sustainable Operations in our CSR Report.