U.S. EPA Lauds Cisco for Meeting Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goal

Cisco is pleased to announce that we received the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2014 Climate Leadership Award for Excellence in GHG Management (Goal Achievement). This award recognizes organizations that publicly report and verify corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories and achieve aggressive GHG emissions reduction goals.

This is the second year in a row Cisco has been recognized by the EPA. Last year we won the Supply Chain Leadership Award for managing and reducing GHG emissions throughout our supply chain.

Cisco was one of 15 organizations and two individuals recognized at the Climate Leadership Conference in San Diego, California yesterday. Cisco received the award because we met our first 5-year goal, announced in June 2007 to reduce all scope 1, 2 and business air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions* worldwide by 25% on an absolute basis from 2007 to 2012.

Andy Smith (right) accepts the 2014 EPA Climate Leadership Award on behalf of Cisco

We achieved this goal while increasing revenue more than 30 percent, demonstrating that improving the environment can be achieved without sacrificing economic growth. Our own collaborative tools, such as Cisco WebEx and Cisco TelePresence, have enabled us to reduce our Scope 3 air travel GHG emissions while saving hundreds of millions of dollars. To reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions, we have implemented hundreds of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects within our own operations, all of which help reduce operational costs, meet aggressive return on investment requirements and help us meet our GHG reduction goal.

Janet McCabe, Acting Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said that our “commitment to reducing carbon pollution demonstrates that efforts to address climate change are repaid by saving money and energy, while supporting more livable and resilient communities, and a healthier, better protected environment.”

Looking forward, in February 2013, we announced our second five-year goals to be met by 2017. These goals focus on reducing the energy intensity of our operations, further reducing business air travel, and powering our operations with low-carbon electricity.

The EPA’s Center for Corporate Climate Leadership co-sponsors the Climate Leadership Awards with three nongovernmental partners — Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), and The Climate Registry (TCR). The national awards program recognizes exemplary corporate, organizational, and individual leadership in response to climate change.

Please learn more about Cisco’s commitment to environmental sustainability at csr.cisco.com.

* Scope 1: All direct GHG emissions; Scope 2: Indirect GHG emissions from consumption of purchased electricity, heat or steam; Scope 3: Other indirect emissions, such as transport-related activities in vehicles not owned or controlled by the reporting entity, electricity-related activities not covered in Scope 2, outsourced activities, waste disposal, etc. Source: Greenhouse Gas Protocol