Cisco Awarded Top International Honor for Energy Management

On September 30, 2015, Cisco received the International Corporate Energy Management Award from the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) for our global energy management program and our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally.  We are very honored to receive this award and very proud of the work that we have done in setting aggressive targets and pursing high value projects to achieve the targets.

Cisco has set and achieved a series of environmental sustainability goals.  In 2009, Cisco met a goal we had set in 2006 to reduce business-air-travel emissions worldwide by 10 percent against a 2006 baseline. In 2012, we met a commitment to reduce all Scope 1, 2, and business-air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions worldwide by 25 percent against a 2007 baseline. In February 2013, we announced a set of five new goals related to our operational energy use and GHG emissions. To achieve these goals, we approved $57.5 million in funding for 2014 through 2017 for the creation of a program called EnergyOps. The EnergyOps team is comprised of energy and sustainability professionals who identify and implement energy efficiency and renewable energy projects throughout our global real estate portfolio working with local facilities teams, engineers and project managers.  Many of the EnergyOps team members are Certified Energy Managers through AEE.

Solar PV array on top of Cisco’s data center in Allen, TX

Since we launched the EnergyOps program, we have completed or initiated 344 energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. This has reduced Cisco’s energy annual use by 105 GWh and GHG emissions cumulatively by over 1 million metric tonne of CO2e. Examples of some of these projects include solar installations in the United States and India, numerous indoor and outdoor lighting improvements, and various types of upgrades to HVAC systems at many of our campuses, like our Shanghai location.

The multi-year EnergyOps program is not only helping us achieve our energy saving goals, but also manage operational expense,  reduce exposure to fluctuating energy prices, and reinforce our commitment to being environmentally responsible. We estimate that the projects we have completed or initiated to date will save approximately US$15M annually.

The AEE Awards are presented annually at the World Energy Engineering Congress to energy companies and professionals who have achieved international, national, regional, or local prominence in their fields.

Please read more about Cisco’s commitment to reducing GHG emissions at csr.cisco.com.