John Chambers speaks regularly of the need for rapid development of smart grid technology, but his support for the necessary climate legislation is lacking. Read the details or do something about it.
Oct 2009 Greenpeace Assessment
Summary: 31/100
Cisco is rapidly moving to serve as a fully integrated smart grid solutions company, serving the energy network in the same way it played a critical role in the development of the internet network. Cisco improved its score on climate advocacy work since May but continues to promote its climate solutions without providing comprehensive figures of net savings.
Public Climate Speech: 1/10
Cisco CEO John Chambers speaks regularly on the need for rapid development of smart grid technology and public-private partnership to make this happen, but he needs to be more directly supporting the strong climate policies that will incentivise this deployment and unlock the business opportunities for Cisco and others.
Political Advocacy: 7/25
Cisco has become more active in its climate and energy advocacy during the past six months, signing the Copenhagen Communique, supporting the Waxman-Markey climate legislation and contributing to EU ICT Communique. Cisco scores 3 out of 10 on repeating advocacy position.
Climate Solutions: 8/50
Cisco is aggressively pursing development of smartgrid solutions as the provider of the next "network" to service the energy sector and is promoting several solutions, such as virtual meeting software and connected urban development. The company, however, provides few case studies of how these solutions achieve net emissions reductions. One limited mention of embedded energy considerations is one example but does not provide comprehensive measurements of net emissions reductions. Without this information, it is impossible to assess the net impact of Cisco's solutions.
Own Emissions Target: 10/10
Cisco receives the maximum number of points for its target of a 25 percent reduction by 2012. Cisco gets maximum points for committing to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2012 based on its 2007 baseline emissions.
Renewable Energy Use: 5/5
Cisco fails to provide clear global figures on renewables use as a global percentage of electricity. But using its Carbon Disclosure Project submission Cisco's 46 percent use of renewables in the US indicates it is above 25 percent for its global renewables use.
See also
- Table of scores for all assessments
- Scoring criteria explained (PDF version)
- May 2009 Assessment (19/100 points, 4th position out of 12)
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