Cisco’s commitment to mitigating climate change is far-reaching, impacting all aspects of the company, from culture and operations to products and customer solutions. Because greenhouse gases are a major contributor to climate change, most of our efforts in this area focus on reducing GHG emissions. To do this, we leverage our own technology to lessen our reliance on business travel and make our company operations more efficient. Using the network as a platform for 21st-century environmental management, we have the ability to exponentially increase the impact of our own efforts and also develop best practices and solutions that we can share with new and existing customers.

Cisco’s GHG Emissions Commitments

Cisco’s 2006 Clinton Global Initiative Carbon-to-Collaboration commitment is to reduce emissions from business air travel by 10 percent, using FY06 as a baseline. Since making this commitment, Cisco has joined the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Leaders program, a public-private partnership that works with companies to develop GHG reduction strategies. As part of EPA Climate Leaders, Cisco has committed to a 25 percent reduction in GHG emissions (including air travel) by CY12, using a CY07 baseline.

To help meet those commitments, we are using Cisco remote collaboration technologies in place of business air travel and making our operations more efficient. With regard to operations, we are reducing energy use and improving energy efficiency in new and retrofitted buildings. We are also applying our network technologies in our engineering laboratories, data centers, and building operations, and we are purchasing electricity from renewable sources.

GHG Emissions Reporting

Cisco’s GHG emissions over the last four years are shown in the following table, expressed in metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (mTCO₂e):

* Scope 3 emissions for FY05 could not be updated, so the value is the same as we reported previously. This value should not be trended with or compared to later years.

Cisco GHG emissions reporting, including the definitions of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, is based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The EPA Climate Leaders program provides additional program guidance.

• Scope 1 and 2: As part of Cisco’s EPA Climate Leaders partnership, we have significantly improved our data collection to make it more complete. In previous years, we reported only the emissions data actually collected from Cisco sites and separately noted the estimated completeness of the data. We now collect actual emissions data for approximately 90 percent of our real estate portfolio and estimate the balance based on building square footage and usage. To make historical trending prior to FY07 comparable, we adjusted the previously reported FY05 and FY06 emissions to estimate 100 percent of Scope 1 and 2 emissions for those years. In addition, FY07 emissions were completely updated as part of a comprehensive upgrade to our internal reporting systems. The table includes 100 percent of our Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
• Scope 3: As part of Cisco’s partnerships with the Clinton Global Initiative and EPA Climate Leaders, we upgraded access to air travel records obtained from our travel provider. Because of incomplete data in prior years, we did not include emissions from several large acquisitions and several countries. We also did not adjust the total for any estimated underreporting. The data for FY06, FY07, and FY08 has been completely updated.

Read more about Cisco’s GHG initiatives:

Reducing GHG Emissions from Air Travel
Reducing GHG Emissions from Operations