Greenpeace started evaluating global Information Technology (IT) companies in 2009 because IT companies have a central role to play in enabling a modern, renewable-powered energy infrastructure. The IT sector has the opportunity to drive transformative change in the consumption and production of energy, with the potential to drive a significant reduction in the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Today it was announced that Cisco is tied with Google for the top spot on the Cool IT Leaderboard -- a scoring system that analyzes IT companies’ contributions to achieving global greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 15 percent by 2020.

The Greenpeace analysis of Cisco’s performance said “Cisco’s leadership improved across each of the three evaluation areas, particularly for updated commitments to manage its energy footprint and increase the amount of renewable energy powering its operations.”

Read more about Cisco’s programs to help the environment in our 2012 CSR Report.

Tags: Cisco, climate change, Cool IT, Energy, GHG, Google, greenpeace

I’m delighted to introduce Dan Kern to the Manufacturing Blog!

Dan joined Cisco five years ago and leads the Manufacturing & Energy Industry Sector marketing practice for the Americas.

He focuses on understanding the business needs of Cisco customers and drives engagements that introduce business transforming concepts to lines of business managers and executives.  Because of his industry knowledge and contributions, Dan was recently recognized as the “Industry Leader of the Year” by GDS International at the 2012 Next Generation Manufacturing Summit and also received the President’s Award at the 2012 Manufacturing Leadership Summit.

Thanks to his past experience, Dan has an intimate understanding of customer business needs.  He has a Six Sigma black belt and held roles in market and customer operations as well as product development.  Dan has also held sales, strategy and marketing positions for manufacturing, financial and government institutions.

Dan has degrees in Sociology with an emphasis in Criminal Justice from Northern Illinois University and a Masters of Business Administration from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

We’re looking forward to Dan’s insights and contributions to this Manufacturing blog.

Welcome Dan!

Tags: Americas Field Marketing, Cisco, Dan Kern, Energy, Manufacturing, Manufacturing Leadership Summit, Next Generation Manufacturing Summit

Following the ITU hosted CTO meeting held in Dubai on November 18 2012, where I represented our CTO Padmasree Warrior, I had the pleasure to present at the ITU-T Global Standards Symposium [GSS] in Dubai on November 19 2012.

This panel was of particular interest to us because Cisco observed a number of industries brought together on the same stage.  Energy, healthcare, and transportation are important to how we live and work, and Cisco engages in each of these sectors.

While this panel demonstrated the huge technological strides each sector is taking, I noted that these advances did not occur overnight.  Each of these sectors has evolved its approach with a lot of effort, over a long period of time. Read More »

Tags: Energy, healthcare, ITU, Service Provider, Transportation

Grid4EU is a four-year, multi-national project that comprises six smart grid projects by utilities in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and the Czech Republic. Together these projects cover more than half of Europe’s electricity supply. With an ecosystem of 27-partners, the project is focusing on smart grid solutions for renewable energy integration, grid automation and energy efficiency.  This will effectively lay the groundwork for future electrical grids, while empowering consumers as marketplace participants.  Ultimately, improving consumption management and cost-effectively achieving greater network reliability, flexibility, and resiliency.

According to Marco Cotti, Head of Smart Grids Development at Enel,

“The GRID4EU project represents the first important step in the implementation of the European Electricity Grid Initiative roadmap and we are convinced that it will become a reference for the development of Smart Grids in Europe and beyond”

Cisco is supporting two major project demos in Italy and the Czech Republic. Read More »

Tags: cez, connected grid, customer, enel, Energy, Europe, Smart Grid, utilities

Recently FortisBC Inc., an integrated energy solution provider serving approximately 162,000 electricity customers in Canada, selected Itron’s smart grid solution to support the utility’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) project.  This follows on the heels of BC Hydro, another Canadian utility, announcing its plan to upgrade nearly 2 million electric meters over the next two years. Both utilities expect to improve customer engagement and reduce costs through operational efficiencies, and a key technology is the communications infrastructure on which both solutions will run.

Earlier this year, Cisco helped rally the industry around the utilities need for an architectural approach based on open standards, that would address interoperability and cybersecurity across disparate systems. The Cisco GridBlocks Architecture^TM provides such framework, and its implementation for the utility field area network is what BC Hydro and FortisBC are using to deliver multiple applications and manage devices over a common communication network. Read More »

Tags: customer, Energy, gridblock architecture, utility