Cisco will increase deal with lowering use of plastics

This publish was written by David Ashley, Senior Vice President, Product & Component Operations at Cisco and Marco Croci, Senior Vice President, Engineering at Cisco.

In 2018, we introduced our first plastic-related aim: to scale back our use of virgin plastic by 20% by our fiscal yr 2025.* We exceeded this aim in our fiscal yr 2021. To construct on this momentum and to handle the well-documented challenges related to plastic, we wish to share our technique to additional scale back our use of virgin plastic in our merchandise and packaging.

Reducing plastic in our merchandise

We have set a aim that by our fiscal yr 2025, 50% of the plastic utilized in our merchandise (by weight) can be product of recycled content material.** Most plastic utilized in Cisco merchandise is present in just a few product classes: Cisco IP telephones, Webex collaboration units, entry factors, and Cisco Meraki merchandise. 

As a part of our journey to attenuate the usage of virgin plastic, our groups are sourcing extra recycled plastic components and designing plastic out of our merchandise. For instance, choose fashions of our 8800 Series IP telephones encompass 68% recycled plastic and a few merchandise in our Catalyst sequence of community switches have been designed with out bezels, the plastic beauty floor on the surface of a tool. 

Reducing plastic in our packaging

We are rethinking product packaging and are sourcing different supplies to plastic. Our technique contains eliminating plastic luggage in our packaging wherever attainable. In our fiscal yr 2022, the vast majority of equipment for Cisco Meraki merchandise shipped in paper-based packaging, which was product of  70% recycled content material. And in sure different product traces, energy cords are labeled with scannable wraps as an alternative of plastic luggage. As a results of these adjustments, we averted transport an estimated ten million plastic luggage, representing 28 tonnes of plastic.

Furthermore, we’re persevering with to scale back foam packaging, one other materials constructed from plastic. The packaging for the Catalyst IR8140 Heavy Duty Router is the primary answer at Cisco to make use of a fiber-flute materials rather than the froth cushioning that’s usually required for heavier merchandise. Opportunities to attenuate the usage of foam throughout our product portfolio will assist us attain our aim of lowering our use of froth packaging by 75% by our fiscal yr 2025.***

Embracing round design

Addressing plastic is only one a part of our holistic round design technique, which is concentrated on designing merchandise and packaging with reuse and useful resource effectivity in thoughts. We have set a aim of incorporating Circular Design Principles into the design of all new merchandise and packaging by fiscal 2025. To do that, we’re embedding round design necessities into our design instruments and product improvement processes, together with partaking our suppliers on modern, sustainable designs for our merchandise, elements, and packaging.

We are additionally working to keep away from transport undesirable equipment to prospects by integrating accent choice into the ordering course of. In our fiscal yr 2022, over 8,500 buyer orders opted out of receiving an influence wire, avoiding the cargo of roughly 205,000 pointless energy cords, in addition to minimizing the packaging that might have wrapped them.

We are dedicated to designing merchandise and methods that assist to allow reuse, reduce environmental influence, and understand worth for our stakeholders. We stay up for persevering with to share our progress in direction of these targets alongside the best way.

Footnotes

* Compared to a fiscal 2018 base yr.

** The plastics included on this aim exclude these contained in commodity elements sourced from suppliers (e.g., plastic screws, followers, and cables).

*** Compared to a fiscal 2019 base yr; aim is measured by weight.

Forward Looking Statements: Readers are cautioned that this weblog publish could also be deemed to comprise forward-looking statements which might be topic to dangers, uncertainties, assumptions and different components which might be tough to foretell, together with these components recognized in our most up-to-date filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 10-Okay and Form 10-Q. Such data speaks solely as of the date of this weblog publish. For additional data, see Forward Looking Statements.

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