Abstract

In 2019, US-based Multinational technology conglomerate, Cisco Systems Inc. (Cisco) was awarded three Climate Leadership Awards from The Center For Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and The Climate Registry (TCR). Two of these awards were for the efficiency in greenhouse gas management, the third was for supply chain leadership. Cisco had always believed in the benefits of environmental sustainability for economies as well as human life. The company had continuously incorporated actions into most of the aspects of their business to achieve environmental sustainability. Actions like reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, preservation of biodiversity and natural resources, and designing the products of the company to minimize waste and environmental impact had also helped Cisco in bagging various awards and recognitions for its efforts towards the benefit of the environment. The efforts of Cisco paid well when in 2019 the company managed to use renewable energy for 80% of their electricity usage globally. Cisco had also been advocating adoption of circular economy in its business by “decoupling business growth from the consumption of finite resources, designing waste out of the system, and transitioning to renewable energy.” Cisco had also been promoting Green IT in its business by launching various initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint from their data centres to offices and cafeterias. The same initiatives were being used to help Cisco customers in reducing their respective carbon footprints. Customers used Cisco’s collaboration solutions to work remotely, which led to less fuel burned on the ground and in the air. The energy-efficient cloud solutions of Cisco helped businesses to reduce their IT energy needs.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Enumerate the benefits of Green IT
• Understand ways in which Information Technology companies can participate in circular economy

Keywords

Green IT; Environmental sustainability; Carbon footprint