Cisco is a tech giant, but social good is at the heart of everything they do. Cisco’s 2021 Purpose Report highlighted several accomplishments in 2021, including: providing job training to roughly three million students worldwide, contributing $477 million to community programs globally and deriving 85 percent of its energy from renewable sources.
Amy Poon, an Analyst Relations Manager at Cisco specializing in People, Policy, and Purpose said, “Industry analysts are primarily technology focused but to see a company holistically, one must understand its people and its purpose to get a full 360-degree view. That’s why more and more analysts are interested in learning about Cisco through the Purpose Report.”
Let’s see what the top tech industry analysts said about Cisco making its mark with the 2021 Purpose Report.
1) Rob Enderle, President and Principal Analyst of the Enderle Group states that Cisco’s approach to steer away from traditional company goals and purpose is impactful by “defining its purpose as making a material positive difference in the world.”
Simply put, “Cisco’s Purpose Is to Improve the World. Imagine if Others Followed.” Read more here.
2) Carolina Milanesi, Founder of The Heart of Tech and President of Creative Strategies, is positive on Cisco’s approach to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
She tweeted her praise for the Purpose Report, saying “I love that @Cisco renamed its #CSR report the “’Purpose report’ environmental, social, and governance efforts should all have a long-term purpose to make the world a better place through technology… As we start talking about the #Metaverse I appreciate @Cisco’s new areas of purpose like addressing the Insecurity of Being, which happens when one is a target of hate & violence, only because they are part of a marginalized group, be it in the physical or virtual world.” Read more here.
3) Patrick Moorhead, Founder, CEO and chief analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy, said Cisco’s environmental-social-governance (ESG) work “is essentially the gold standard in the tech industry” for CSR.
“Less committed companies might have been content to simply reduce the emissions from their operations and call it a day. Leave it to Cisco to go the extra mile upstream and downstream,” Moorhead said about the company’s commitment to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Read more here.
4) Bola Rotibi, Analyst and Research Director of CCS Insight, says Cisco differentiates from the competition with purpose.
She states, “Cisco’s long-standing report exposes a solid bedrock for taking quantifiable action in support of its corporate social responsibilities… with its Purpose Report, Cisco has in place a yearly framework for assessing impact and achievements from many of the different ESG investments it’s made over the years.” Read more here.
Cisco is a known leader in the tech industry and enterprise networking, but, per analysts, Cisco is also becoming a top leader in IT corporate social responsibility through its efforts and goals in the 2021 Purpose Report.
To read highlights from our 2021 Cisco Purpose Report and
learn more about how we’re powering a more inclusive future:Visit our Cisco ESG Reporting Hub
The power of purpose!
Hello Sydney. I have a question concerning the CPR.
The following is from Business Travel News and specifically on Cisco. I’d like to know how come the goals publicised were missed and why Cisco didn’t mention this in the CPR.
What is the purpose of trying to mis lead people on such an important topic?
Surely its more credible to say we got it wrong but we are going to do XY and Z to put it right.
Cisco state “learn how we’ve made progress to each of our goals”. So what did you learn on missing this particular goal? Is there a commitment on reduction of Cisco business travel once the global travel restrictions return to pre pandemic?
Fair enough question? I’ll take a screen shot of the comment once submitted to the site. It will be interesting to see if Cisco respond fairly.
“Cisco in fiscal year 2012 set a goal to cut such emissions 40 percent by fiscal year 2017 from a fiscal year 2007 baseline. That didn’t happen, with emissions registering about 11 percent lower than 2007 figures, largely due to an increase in global sales activity and the number of Cisco employees.”
PS I just want to clarify that the top tech analysts commenting on the report were also aware of the failure to report on the business travel goals being completely ignored by Cisco in the Cisco Purpose Report.
Date Goal Established
June 2008
Goal topic
Energy/GHG
Goal
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Leaders commitment to reduce all Scope 1, Scope 2, and business-air-travel Scope 3 GHG emissions worldwide by 25% absolute by end of CY12 (CY07 base year).
As per 2017 this goal failed. That’s ok as the important thing is to fix any issue identified, but Cisco don’t even mention business travel in the current report, yet hybrid working is a major promotion by Cisco.
When Cisco are asked the awkward questions. SILENCE.
Cisco reports on all of its environmental goals and provides an archive of past CSR Reports on the ESG Reporting Hub here: https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/about/csr/esg-hub.html