2015 Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility Report: Governance and Ethics

Cisco Corporate Social Responsibility strategy prioritizes the issues that are most important to our business and to our stakeholders, identified through a formal CSR materiality assessment. We use the Cisco CSR Report to communicate our approach, objectives, progress, and challenges around five high-level priorities. Today, we’ll take a look at Governance and Ethics:

Cisco is committed to creating technology solutions that solve our customers’ challenges and make the world a better place by connecting the unconnected. To bring that value to the world, it is essential that we have the trust of all our stakeholders — our employees, customers, and suppliers, and the communities in which we operate. A commitment to ethical conduct — and to the governance structures that ensure we walk the talk — provides the foundation for us to earn that trust.

Mark Chandler, Cisco’s Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary, and Chief Compliance Officer, expressed the importance of earning the trust of Cisco’s stakeholders in this year’s Corporate Social Responsibility report:

“A commitment to ethical conduct—and to the governance structures that ensure we walk
the talk—provides the foundation for us to earn our stakeholders’ trust. We are focused on addressing concerns around high-priority issues such as digital rights, ethical conduct, and data security and privacy.”

Cisco is focused on addressing concerns around high-priority issues such as digital rights, ethical conduct, and data security and privacy. We strive to tackle challenging issues head on, make our communications and processes simple, be accountable for fulfilling our commitments, and empower all our employees to do what is right. Our Code of Business Conduct (COBC) sets out our expectations for employees and helps them make ethical decisions. In FY15, Cisco achieved a number of goals around governance and ethics, which included:

25,000 employees have completed our new “Human Rights in the Digital Age” video-based training course.

Ethisphere Institute has recognized Cisco as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies for eight consecutive years.

100 percent of eligible employees completed annual certification to the Cisco Code of Business Conduct.

Promoted digital privacy rights through our support of the U.S. LEADS Act and our support in Microsoft’s case with the U.S. government debating the legality of a search warrant for emails stored on servers in Ireland.

Cisco employees raised 584 ethical questions or concerns through the Ethics helpline. Nearly half of these were questions seeking further guidance.

In the coming fiscal year, Cisco will continue to advocate and defend a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance, maintain open and global product standards, and support attempts to reform outdated privacy laws.

To read the full report and learn more about Cisco’s Corporate Social Responsibility efforts, please visit csr.cisco.com