Data is guiding Cisco’s net-zero journey
Supporting Cisco’s Sustainability Data Foundation
Making a positive impact on the planet
The Plan for Possible, Cisco’s next generation environmental sustainability strategy, sets a high bar for corporate sustainability.
Launched in 2023, it outlines the tech giant’s ambition to make a positive impact on the planet, and to support customers’ needs, and it includes a goal to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across its value chain by 2040.
To help achieve its goals, Cisco partnered with Deloitte to transform its data strategy, building a Sustainability Data Foundation (SDF).
Providing sustainability-related data for thousands of Cisco’s products, this dynamic platform is now the central hub for its sustainability data strategy.
Not only does the SDF bring together and analyse data to measure progress towards the 2040 net-zero target but it also underpins a fundamental shift within Cisco, transforming its approach to managing sustainability data.
Showing people and customers the way to net-zero
As customers and businesses make progress on the world’s net-zero journey, clear insights into a product’s environmental footprint are empowering them to make more sustainable choices.
While reducing its own environmental impact, Cisco wanted to support customers and partners to achieve their own sustainability goals. Including emissions from scopes 1, 2 and 3 in its 2040 net-zero goal means considering the sustainability of its supplier and customer communities as well as its own business.
By unifying data from the supply chain, engineering, customer usage and third parties, the SDF helps Cisco, its suppliers and customers make decisions aligned with sustainability and business goals.
It is a single source of truth that can help provide people and customers with the insights needed to drive impactful change.
Cisco’s Sustainable Data Foundation is a bold, positive example for the corporate world.
It’s about working together to create a more sustainable future for everyone.
Data to guide Cisco’s community
Today, the SDF is informing and empowering Cisco’s people, customers and suppliers to make decisions that can address their business and sustainability goals.
What sets the SDF apart is its foundation in a variety of use cases spanning strategy, product design, customer engagement and reporting.
Starting as a targeted proof of concept (PoC), the platform grew over the course of two years.
“The PoC was well received by Cisco, so we scaled up the SDF, adding more data sets, calculations and users across the business," says Pedro Barros, a director from Deloitte.
Through a continuous dialogue with Cisco’s technical experts and business leaders, the Deloitte team engaged with stakeholders across functions and countries, ensuring the collective ownership needed to make the SDF a long-term success.
For Cisco’s people, automated processes in the SDF have freed up valuable time, given product teams access to dashboards with recommendations for Scope 3 emission reductions and equipped sales teams with data-driven insights to communicate the environmental benefits of Cisco’s offerings.
“The SDF helps customers calculate the benefits of upgrading products,” explains Pedro. “So, customers can easily see how a product upgrade will potentially help cut costs while saving the environment.”
A unified approach to data
Today, the SDF shows just how powerful a force for change data, and the understanding it brings, can be.
Cisco’s data-driven approach provides the foundation it needs to make progress towards its 2040 net-zero target, guiding its strategic direction as sustainability and business needs evolve.
Providing a central enterprise data platform to guide activity helps enable Cisco and its stakeholders to tell a comprehensive story of their sustainability journey.
Having data that is standardised and unified enables the company to transform its data into actionable insights and clear metrics. This supports accurate reporting and detailed understanding of product operations, supply chains, customer usage and emissions.
More than just numbers, the SDF provides insights that can drive real change, supporting Cisco, its suppliers and customers to make strategic decisions, operational changes and design decisions that minimise environmental impact across the product life cycle.
Recognition, including from the SustainableIT.org Impact Awards and Gartner, is helping to reinforce Cisco’s leadership in sustainability, fostering trust and collaboration while also enhancing Cisco’s offer for suppliers and customers with environmental sustainability commitments.
