ON THIS PAGE:

Reducing GHG Emissions Better Water Stewardship

Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship

We work closely with our suppliers to use natural resources efficiently, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and advance the design of more sustainable products.

At Cisco, we have a responsibility to minimize the environmental impact of our global supply chain. We are proud to be ranked:

No. 3 in the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2025¹
No. 3 in IT/ICT Industry, IPE Green Supply Chain Corporate Information Transparency Index 2025¹
No. 4 in IT/ICT Industry, IPE Supply Chain Corporate Climate Action Transparency Index 2025¹

Reducing GHG Emissions

Cisco has a goal to reach net-zero GHG emissions across our value chain by 2040. As part of this journey, we set a near-term target to reduce absolute Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services, upstream transportation and distribution, and use of sold products by 30% by fiscal 2030 (using fiscal 2019 as base year).²

Today, about 34% of Cisco’s total GHG emissions are generated in the supply chain. Achieving our goals requires close collaboration with suppliers, industry peers, and other stakeholders. We work with our suppliers to reduce their energy and fuel use, lower GHG emissions, and adopt clean energy. We also drive transparency through data collection and reporting, enabling us to better understand and address supply chain emissions.

To drive accountability, Cisco requires suppliers to set absolute GHG emissions-reduction targets. In fiscal 2025, 88% of Cisco component, manufacturing, and logistics suppliers (by spend) have a public, absolute GHG emissions-reduction target, surpassing the 80% goal we had set for this year.³

Visit Our Progress for our performance toward this goal, and read more about our historical data related to this goal on our Data and Assurance page.

Each year, our suppliers are expected to:

Provide a complete and accurate inventory of corporate-wide Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions, as well as Scope 3 emissions from material categories
Make the response publicly available via CDP
Demonstrate verification (third-party review) of reported GHG emissions
Report annual progress against an absolute GHG emissions-reduction goal
Request that their suppliers and business partners also report to CDP using the same process as above (recommended)

In fiscal 2025, Cisco and CDP partnered to support suppliers throughout the reporting process. We delivered two targeted webinars that explained Cisco’s sustainability requirements, deconstructed the CDP questionnaire, and clarified our reporting expectations — while providing a live question-and-answer session. As a result, suppliers entered the process better prepared and produced disclosures that more closely aligned with Cisco’s requirements.

In fiscal 2025, Cisco collected annual energy consumption and GHG data from our manufacturing partners. By establishing a clear understanding of current energy consumption, we can better identify opportunities for reduction and support our suppliers in their transition to renewable energy. This data serves as a baseline for tracking progress in energy use and emissions from Cisco’s production lines in the years ahead. Learn more about Cisco's collaborative efforts with suppliers to increase use of renewable energy.

Learn more about our Scope 3 emissions categories.

Reducing Emissions Through Energy Efficiency and Mode Shift

Cisco collaborates with suppliers to reduce energy and fuel use during the manufacturing and transport of products and components. In fiscal 2025, 87% of our logistics-related supply chain emissions came from air shipments. To address this, Cisco’s mode shift initiative optimizes global factory-to-factory shipments by shifting from air to ocean transport, which reduces emissions. Many of our transportation carriers offer low-carbon shipping options, with offerings that vary by geography and emissions reduction mechanisms. Additionally, Cisco continues to enhance the quality of data we collect from carriers to improve the accuracy of reported logistics emissions.

Enabling Renewable Energy in the Supply Chain

Expanding renewable energy use throughout our global supply chain is crucial to our net-zero ambitions, but it also comes with challenges. Renewable energy infrastructure is still developing in many parts of the world, and our suppliers often face hurdles due to limited availability, high costs, and regulatory barriers. To address these challenges, we collaborate with cross-industry groups to advance clean energy adoption in key manufacturing countries. For example, as a founding member of the Asia Clean Energy Coalition, Cisco partners with other stakeholders to strategically shift energy policy in key Asian markets. We also engage directly with key suppliers⁴ to support high-impact renewable energy projects at critical sites in our supply chain network. For example, Cisco has served as a sponsor of the Catalyze program since fiscal 2024, which aims to accelerate access to renewable energy throughout the global information and communication technology (ICT) supply chain. In fiscal 2025, 27 Cisco suppliers registered on the platform, and 17 of them actively participated in the educational series, collectively completing more than 100 webinars covering topics, such as Renewables 101, onsite solar, power purchase agreements, virtual power purchase agreements, energy attribute certificates, and more. Several suppliers also attended market briefings for their respective countries, including Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.

Learn more about how we collaborate with leading brands and our suppliers to advance clean energy procurement.

Reducing Material Waste

Cisco set a goal for 70% of our component and manufacturing suppliers by spend to achieve a zero-waste diversion rate at one or more sites by fiscal 2025. We are proud to report that we exceeded this target, reaching 76%. To measure and drive progress towards this achievement, Cisco worked with our manufacturing partners to collect waste diversion data and monitor progress toward a zero-waste diversion rate at relevant sites. Manufacturing and component suppliers could certify zero-waste diversion with TRUE Zero Waste or Underwriters Laboratories (UL) zero waste to landfill (ZWTL) audits. Alternatively, our suppliers could report a zero-waste diversion rate at production sites that are also certified to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 :2015 environmental management. Cisco continues to work closely with our suppliers to advance sustainability and use natural resources efficiently.

Visit the Goals and Progress page for our latest update on this goal, and visit the Data and Assurance page for historical data.

Improving Water Security

Cisco is committed to safeguarding water resources, recognizing their critical importance to the communities where our suppliers operate. As climate change accelerates, water-related risks — such as droughts, flooding, and water scarcity — are becoming more acute and widespread, making water stewardship a key business and sustainability priority.

We engage our top suppliers on water management by requiring CDP water disclosures. In the 2025 CDP Water reporting cycle, 95% of our key suppliers⁴ disclosed to CDP and 79% had set water-related targets.

While most of our manufacturing partners use modest amounts of water primarily for drinking and office needs, select component suppliers — such as those producing semiconductors and printed circuit boards (PCBs) — have higher water demands.

To proactively manage risks and opportunities, Cisco uses the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Water Risk Filter to evaluate supplier sites based on physical, regulatory, and reputational water risks. This data-driven approach enables us to focus our stewardship efforts where they matter most. Currently, we prioritize engagement in three river basins: Lake Taihu and the Pearl River basin in Mainland China, and the Sa Keo River basin in Thailand. Through these targeted actions and industry partnerships, Cisco aims to promote responsible water management and resilience across our global supply chain.

Building Our Suppliers' Capabilities for Better Water Stewardship

Since fiscal 2021, Cisco has used an industry-specific water checklist, developed in partnership with industry peers and Water Stewardship Asia Pacific, to help suppliers align to the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Standard. The checklist evaluates 45 indicators across water management, water measurement and performance, stakeholder engagement, climate change mitigation, and disclosure. Suppliers are evaluated on a three-level scale, with Level 3 indicating sector best practice and readiness for AWS certification.

We continue to focus on supplier sites with high-water consuming operations in high-water-stress locations. Our fiscal 2025 progress includes:

Twelve supplier sites graduated from the ICT water checklist program.
Five new supplier sites were added to the program in addition to the two sites continuing their engagement from fiscal 2024.
Cisco worked with suppliers to address 196 corrective action findings and close 163 of them, representing a closure rate of 83%.

The top five indicators that were tracked and improved in fiscal 2025:

Water pollution prevention and wastewater treatment
Water resources and water conservation
Supply chain engagement
Stakeholder analysis
Safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH)

To strengthen water stewardship across our supply chain, Cisco continued its engagement with 21 supplier sites in fiscal 2025 for water balance map data collection as part of the ICT Water Checklist Program. This initiative focused on 15 sites for PCB production, since PCBs represent one of the most water-intensive components in Cisco products. We collected annual PCB production data and water balance maps from these suppliers, enabling Cisco to track key water management indicators.

With these data sets, Cisco can now calculate water key performance indicators (KPIs), including the volume of water withdrawal, consumption, and discharge per square meter of PCB, as well as total volumes for each supplier related to Cisco's PCB production. We analyze and rank these KPIs, providing feedback to suppliers on areas for improvement. Establishing this baseline enables us to assess PCB suppliers' water performance and lays the foundation for ongoing engagement and year-over-year monitoring.

Cisco has supported three high-water-consuming supplier sites in the Wusong River basin, China, to join the AWS Impact Accelerator. After Cisco led two years of capability building and a one-year impact accelerator project engagement, one of our PCB supplier sites in the Wusong River area successfully achieved AWS Platinum certification in fiscal 2025. This site is now the first among all global participants in the Impact Accelerator project to obtain AWS certification.

To better track suppliers' water management progress in the ICT water checklist program, Cisco included a new requirement for the 13 high-water-consuming supplier sites to develop a site water balance and update it on a quarterly basis. This is an educational process for some suppliers who have not previously mapped the site’s full internal water cycle. It helps them understand how to collect and analyze essential water data from their production operations to identify efficiency opportunities. Through this process, some suppliers have identified and addressed issues, such as water leakage, lack of metering, and potential pollution risks, improving their overall internal water management. The data from the first year's water balance mapping can help provide details on total water withdrawal for Cisco's productions, average water use by product quantity or revenue, water reuse rate, and discharge volume. This information is intended to also establish a baseline for monitoring future years' progress in water use and stewardship improvements.

Pollution

Cisco partners with the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) to manage environmental risks at supplier sites in Mainland China. Recognized by IPE’s Green Supply Chain and ranking third in the 2025 IT/ICT Industry Corporate Information Transparency Index, Cisco uses IPE’s Blue Map database to identify and address supplier environmental violations. Suppliers are required to publish corrective action plans on the IPE website to improve transparency and define remediation timelines. Cisco’s Green Supply Chain initiative also cascades environmental expectations to sub-tier suppliers. Since fiscal 2020, 100% of manufacturing partners in Mainland China have managed their direct material suppliers’ environmental performance using IPE Blue Map.

Cisco expanded the Green Supply Chain initiative to Taiwan in fiscal 2024. We aim to sustain and broaden the Green Supply Chain initiative with Tier 1 suppliers beyond Mainland China, Taiwan, and Vietnam in the coming years.

Building Transparency and Capacity

In fiscal 2024, Cisco continued to invite suppliers and their sub-tier suppliers to participate in a series of environmental trainings organized by IPE that covered a wide range of environmental topics, including:

GHG Accounting and Climate Strategy: Focuses on methods for GHG accounting, emission reduction, and climate disclosure and logistics applications
Environmental Data and Policy Compliance: Covers policy interpretation for resource consumption, pollutant emissions, and biodiversity impacts, with emphasis on data reporting and the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR)
Data-Driven Environmental Management: Explores artificial intelligence-powered enforcement and the development of effective environmental management policies and case studies, particularly in relation to chemicals

In fiscal 2025, we continued to require suppliers in Mainland China and Taiwan to disclose data on GHG emissions, energy conservation, water, air, and waste through the IPE GHG Disclosure and PRTR reporting system. We worked to guide more supplier sites to complete their GHG reporting, increasing transparency of the GHG footprint across our supply chain.

A total of 168 supplier sites completed GHG reporting in fiscal 2025, compared to 152 in fiscal 2024. We also maintained a high participation rate in PRTR reporting, with 204 supplier sites submitting their reports in fiscal 2025, up from 166 sites in fiscal 2024.

1 IPE rankings are based on results released by reporting company at the end of the previous calendar year.

2 The baseline and progress reported for our fiscal 2030 goal includes a subset of Scope 3 Category 1 (purchased goods and services from manufacturing, component, and warehouse suppliers), a subset of Scope 3 Category 4 (upstream transportation and distribution from Cisco purchased air transportation), and all of Scope 3 Category 11 (use of sold products).

3 Suppliers are expected to set public absolute GHG emissions-reduction targets or intensity targets that produce an absolute emissions reduction during the target period. Cisco encourages suppliers to set targets in line with an approved science-based methodology. Progress toward this goal is quantified using Cisco’s supply chain spend, which can vary annually.

4 Key suppliers include: Cisco Contract Manufacturers, Strategic Original Design Manufacturers, and Hardware Suppliers in the top 80% of spend in fiscal 2025.