Cisco has announced the Carbon Emissions Insights in Webex Control Hub that delivers actionable insights allowing organizations to meet their sustainability goals. It is the first of its kind to provide scope 2 emissions reporting and recommendations for optimizing energy consumption and usage of Cisco Webex devices in the collaboration industry. This is part of Cisco’s larger sustainability commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 and to continue innovating its products with sustainability as a priority.
According to Gartner, CEOs placed environmental sustainability in their top 10 strategic business priorities for the first time this past year. Of the 80% of CEOs who intend to invest in new or improved products in 2022 and 2023, environmental sustainability was cited as the third largest driver, just behind functional performance and general quality. Sustainability also appears as a competitive differentiator for CEOs – in fact, it is on the same level as brand trust among respondents.
“At Cisco, we’re laser-focused on helping to create a more sustainable and positive impact across the globe,” says Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM, Security and Collaboration, Cisco. “Critical to our mission of designing products and solutions with circular design principles in mind is helping our customers meet their environment, sustainability and governance goals, and we’re the only company to offer a feature of this kind.”
Carbon Emissions Insights in the Webex Control Hub allow companies to:
- Report estimated energy usage and related carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions from Cisco collaboration devices. The calculations are based on formulas from recognized governmental authorities such as the US Environmental Protection Agency
- See emissions trends over time to track progress towards sustainability goals
- Guide administrators to enable features like Webex’s Office Hours to reduce their energy usage
Carbon Emissions Insights will be available in Webex Control Hub and enabled by default for IT admins. This data can also be exported through an API for integration into customer sustainability reporting tools. Carbon Emissions Insights will be available starting this summer.
Cisco’s goal is that 100% of new Cisco products and packaging incorporate Circular Design Principles by 2025, with Cisco devices playing a large part in this. Cisco encourages customers, partners and employees to participate in its Takeback and Reuse Program where 99.9% of Cisco’s end-of-use hardware that is returned is reused and recycled. Further, Cisco is designing its products with sustainability and circularity top of mind including the Cisco Room Bar which was released last year with 100% recyclable packaging material to eliminate up to 165,000 pounds of packaging material per year from recyclable material. In addition, Cisco IP Phone 8800 series will have models made with 100 percent Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) resin, which helps avoid the use of more than 3 million pounds of virgin plastic per year.
