We embrace our opportunity to help customers, suppliers, and partners reduce their environmental impacts. Our industry has an important role to play. Cisco’s digital technologies can be used to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve resource efficiency, and enable circularity in business models.
Our technology can also be used to help prepare for the consequences of a changing world and a changing climate—such as to monitor grid reliability, enable grid decarbonization, monitor transportation and water systems, and support the workplace of the future. For example, through Webex by Cisco, AnyConnect VPN, and TelePresence, Cisco provides tools to make it possible for millions of employees to work remotely daily. These technologies can help reduce GHG emissions associated with commuting and other business travel. For 40 years, Cisco has been helping businesses, communities, and countries transition to a digital economy. Now, we are helping them adapt to a low-carbon, circular economy as well.
Cisco empowers our sales and partner communities with training, key tools, and new resources so our extended ecosystem is ready to engage customers on their sustainability priorities. Learn about Cisco's Environmental Sustainability Specialization for partners.
As companies set ambitious GHG emissions-reduction targets, including net-zero or other science-based targets, technology will play a role in driving emissions reduction.
Cisco’s Smart Building solutions can help our customers reduce their energy use through low-voltage Power over Ethernet (PoE) smart switches that provide network-based monitoring and control of temperature, lighting, air quality, and other building characteristics. Using these solutions, facilities operators can monitor systems and devices, manage energy use, track occupancy levels to protect occupants’ health and safety, and troubleshoot issues.
We also support customers’ transition to hybrid work practices and reducing emissions from air travel and commuting. Cisco’s remote collaboration technologies can also increase employee productivity, promote work-life balance, and help strengthen partnerships across diverse geographies.
US-based construction leader Interstates has modernized its data center, accelerated its IT operations, and laid the foundation for a hybrid cloud model with Cisco UCS X-Series servers and Cisco Intersight. The performance and density of Cisco UCS X-Series modular systems allowed Interstates to consolidate its server footprint across two data centers by more than 50%. And the modularity of the platform gives the company exceptional flexibility in addition to a lifespan that is expected to last more than a decade. According to Interstates, reducing rack space enabled them to use less power and cooling. With the company wanting to be more sustainable, Cisco UCS X-series servers are helping Interstates move toward that goal.
One of the world's leading communication services providers, BT was looking at the functionality of their head office, One Braham, in London. One Braham, like all new and refurbished BT workplaces, is built on a comprehensive suite of Cisco solutions. This is tied together through an engagement with Cisco Customer Experience. The approach involved trialing Kontact IO sensors with Cisco Spaces for Smart Buildings, aiming to deliver granular details on how the space is being used. Cisco Catalyst Center offers more than just reducing energy consumption during quiet periods. Alongside this capability, Cisco Catalyst Center utilizes automation and artificial intelligence to optimize various network functions. This multifaceted platform empowers BT to streamline operations and maximize the efficiency of its network infrastructure. This not only impacts energy usage but also aligns with the business's desire to be smart and more sustainable.
The global COVID-19 pandemic altered dynamics between companies, workers, and workspaces. Many organizations are trying to determine how to best use their real estate and support their employees moving forward. Cisco is demonstrating what’s possible with the newly renovated, completely reimagined Penn 1 Plaza in New York City. The building, a 42,000-square-foot Midtown Manhattan building constructed in the 1970s, now showcases innovation, flexibility, and sustainability. Penn 1 was converted to a smart building, thanks to a foundational network featuring Cisco Catalyst 9000 switches and access points, PoE technology that provides data connectivity and electrical power for the building’s subsystems, and a single interface—Cisco Spaces—for integrating and visualizing the data from those systems.
WPP, a U.K.-based creative agency, is reducing its office footprint by moving its global agencies and staff to campus sites in major cities. The company uses Cisco Meraki in these new buildings to understand energy usage and reduce GHG emissions—and inspire its clients to do the same. Cisco Meraki sensors track a range of energy and environmental data that can help reduce usage and costs and make for a better working environment. WPP reported a 44% cut in cooling energy and a 27% drop in total energy consumption for its data center in Sea Containers House, London, thanks in part to closer monitoring. WPP intends to replicate this monitoring, and the associated savings, worldwide. Globally, WPP estimated that this will equate to a reduction in carbon emissions of 86 kilotons—the equivalent of planting 1.5 million trees per year.
Like other local councils across the United Kingdom, Wrexham County Borough Council (WCBC) is tasked with meeting ambitious carbon-reduction commitments. WCBC itself wants to be carbon neutral by 2030. The use of Cisco Meraki products establishes consistent network management throughout WCBC schools. The solution, designed and implemented alongside Cisco partner CAE Technology Services, involved 1143 Meraki MR Wi-Fi 6 access points and more than 250 Meraki MS switches. Schools can be managed from a central location via the Meraki dashboard application programming interface. Using WiserWatts, an integrated energy management platform from Cisco partner CAE Technology Services, it is estimated that there has been a 52% reduction in overnight Wi-Fi electricity use within the school estate, with annual carbon emissions expected to decrease by 10 metric tons of CO2e.
ScottishPower Renewables is part of Iberdrola, a global energy leader and top producer of wind power. ScottishPower Renewables collaborated with Cisco to produce the Cisco Validated Designs for offshore wind farm projects. During the early stages of the offshore wind farm project, the Cisco Validated Designs helped ScottishPower Renewables streamline procurement and reduce the likelihood of bespoke designs emerging for individual offshore projects. Once the wind farm is operational, automation is expected to improve efficiency. Automating Day Zero provisioning can help boost operations teams in deploying network equipment quickly and consistently, and automation can bring consistency, from security policies to device replacement, refresh, compliance, and assurance.
As Italy’s largest electricity provider, Enel needs to make sure that its services are always on. We’ve partnered with Enel to create a smarter, more efficient power grid. Enel is working with Cisco to introduce innovative solutions for agile grid operation, regulation, and supervision. Using Cisco technology, Enel can monitor its energy grid and preemptively address faults or failures that threaten the network. Cisco solutions help Enel connect its grid to renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy at scale, speeding the transition to a low-carbon electricity grid. Together, Cisco and Enel are supporting sustainability and more reliable, affordable energy.
In 2024, Silks Place Tainan became the first hotel in Taiwan to sign to Cisco Green Pay. Since implementing the offering across their company, they’ve replaced hundreds of wired and wireless network-based stations in their hotel guest rooms and public areas throughout the hotel. The flexible IT payment solution enabled the company to address key ESG initiatives, provided a 5% sustainability incentive on Cisco hardware, and offered predictable payments. At the end of term, the product is recovered by Cisco free of charge and enters Cisco’s Circular Economy Program.
With Cisco Green Pay, Silks Place Tainan has transformed its IT infrastructure, while more sustainably disposing of legacy IT equipment in alignment with its ESG goals and demonstrating its commitment to advancing a more sustainable future for employees, guests, and local communities. The offering not only helps to advance the online experience of their hotel guests, but it provides the added value of reducing e-waste.
Cosentino, based in Spain, is a global family-owned company that produces and distributes surfaces for architecture and design. The company became the first in the world to leverage a Cisco Green Pay agreement. Cisco Green Pay is an IT payment solution supporting circularity from Cisco Capital that shifts equipment provision from an ownership model to a circular economy model. Instead of buying the equipment outright, Cosentino signed a three-year payment agreement, at the end of which Cisco will refurbish, recycle, or reuse equipment. Cisco will then replace it with new, state-of-the-art equipment. "By cycling out our network every three years, we eliminate e-waste and ensure we always have the most reliable and secure hardware available," says Diego Zengin, Cosentino's Chief Technology Officer.
A service provider headquartered in Cairo, Telecom Egypt aims to become a leader in corporate sustainability, and they're partnering with Cisco to achieve those goals. The solution they used is the Cisco Sustainability Priority Assessment, which is designed to help companies extract more value from their technology investments while reducing costs and accelerating their sustainability journey. Mohamed Al-Fowey, Chief Technology Officer, Telecom Egypt shared, “The Cisco sustainability priority assessment report provided us with a clear roadmap and success measurements.”
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