This weblog is a part of our deal with Cisco staff who’re “Striving for Sustainability” by discovering alternatives to combine sustainability of their day-to-day work.
At Cisco, we now have been specializing in evolving from a linear financial system that extracts sources and finally wastes them, to a round one which finds new makes use of for merchandise and their inputs. By understanding the environmental impacts of our merchandise, we will make knowledgeable choices to scale back the sources used and decide find out how to prolong the lifetime of our merchandise.
That brings us to Sripriya Narayanan, a senior product supervisor primarily based in India who works for Cisco’s Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) enterprise unit, which focuses on industrial routers, switches, and entry factors. She has collaborated with Cisco’s Circular Design workforce to develop a sequence of commercial routers with Circular Design Principles on the core. I not too long ago sat down along with her to study extra about her story:
When did your curiosity in sustainability start?
Sripriya: My journey in direction of sustainability started in my childhood in India, surrounded by my dad and mom and grandparents, who lived what we now name a sustainable way of life. Their strategy was easy: shopping for solely what was crucial, avoiding plastic, minimizing waste, and embracing a holistic, minimalist way of life. This simplicity deeply influenced me. Another affect is my love for nature and spending time in pure settings. Being in nature taught me the significance of preserving its tranquility and sweetness for future generations.
When I moved to the United States after beginning my profession at Cisco, I started volunteering with an environmental nonprofit in San Jose referred to as Our City Forest. There, I skilled as an arborist and earned a certification in tree planting. On weekends, I led neighborhood teams, together with kids and oldsters, in tree planting actions throughout Santa Clara County. This expertise sparked my ardour for environmental advocacy.
Can you inform us about your skilled and academic journey to date?
Sripriya: My journey started as a software program engineer at Cisco, the place I progressed to a lead engineer and technical chief. While I loved my work, I spotted that to drive change, I wanted to transition to the enterprise aspect the place choices impacting sustainability had been made. To facilitate this, I pursued an MBA. I selected Berkeley’s Haas School of Business resulting from its deal with sustainability and the lively Net Impact Club. This membership allowed me to interact with trade influencers and educate my friends, lots of whom had been CEOs or VPs attending night and weekend lessons. Collaborating with these key trade figures was enriching, because it enabled us to collectively promote sustainable practices.
During my second yr at Berkeley, I transitioned into product administration at Cisco, a pure development aligning with my targets. I joined the economic IoT enterprise unit as a product supervisor, main the economic routing portfolio. This function entails end-to-end administration, from defining the product to launching it and interesting with clients in addition to managing its end-of-life. The industrial IoT enterprise unit was essential to me, because it allowed direct interplay with trade leaders in sectors like utilities, manufacturing, oil and fuel, and transportation. The convergence of IT and OT is a spotlight for industries and significant infrastructure suppliers. Cisco leverages its direct interactions with enterprise leaders to discover the way it can allow finest practices, together with sustainability, throughout networks from enterprise to trade areas, all whereas sustaining belief and addressing each inner product challenges and exterior elements. It was an opportunity to affect sustainability on a bigger scale, fulfilling my ambition to combine circularity practices into the enterprise realm.
How are you incorporating circularity in your function as a product supervisor?
Sripriya: Embracing modular design has develop into crucial, particularly in our industrial IoT enterprise unit, the place clients anticipate long-lasting merchandise, not like the enterprise sector with frequent refresh cycles. Modularizing elements permits for standardization throughout enterprise items, providing flexibility and decreasing redesign prices. This strategy additionally aligns with sustainability targets by minimizing waste and useful resource utilization.
While growing our next-generation merchandise, I prioritized Circular Design Principles. Inspired by sustainability advocates and my very own ardour, I collaborated cross-functionally to combine modular elements and enhance vitality effectivity for utility shoppers involved with vitality consumption.
I additionally initiated extra packaging sustainability efforts, eliminating extreme foam and adopting supplies with a decrease environmental affect from manufacturing or finish of life. This was achieved via collaboration with Cisco’s packaging sustainability workforce. At this level of my profession, I used to be promoted to a senior product supervisor place and was chosen as a frontrunner to drive sustainability initiatives for our complete Industrial IoT enterprise unit.
Looking to the long run, I’ll proceed to drive sustainability initiatives for Cisco Industrial IoT in partnership with the Chief Sustainability Office (CSO) and Engineering Sustainability Office (ESO) groups.
What advantages have you ever noticed from implementing Circular Design Principles?
Sripriya: Implementing Circular Design Principles gives quite a few benefits, notably in extending product lifetimes. Traditionally, companies targeted on frequent product refreshes to attain their targets. However, by adopting a round design mindset permits us to foster innovation with out the need to launch new merchandise each few years. This shift in perspective isn’t solely useful for our firm but additionally resonates throughout varied industries, together with the enterprise B2B sector.
Circular design can help quicker innovation by constructing on present merchandise quite than ranging from scratch. This strategy reduces operational prices and capital bills, in addition to greenhouse fuel (GHG) emissions, by minimizing using pure sources. Furthermore, designing merchandise in a modular means facilitates take-back and reuse, which might scale back monetary pressures on each our clients and our provide chain administration.
From an environmental standpoint, round design reduces waste and enhance vitality effectivity. During product use, vitality effectivity is essential. Our collaboration with the CSO workforce on a complete product life cycle evaluation highlighted that almost all of GHG emissions happen in the course of the use section. Therefore, integrating energy-efficient options in product design is crucial for decreasing emissions.
How are Cisco’s Industrial IoT improvements serving to clients transition to extra round fashions?
Sripriya: It’s important to deal with our clients’ present enterprise challenges whereas offering them with straightforward methods to leverage new improvements with out utterly changing their present merchandise. Cisco’s Industrial IoT options underscore vitality effectivity and help round practices, enhancing sustainability in product administration.
With a round design strategy, we allow our clients to avoid wasting the expense of shopping for utterly new tools each time their necessities change, which additionally eliminates the sources and vitality required to create new tools throughout manufacturing, delivery, and logistics. By upgrading or repairing simply the person modules, clients prolong the product’s lifetime, scale back supplies which are disposed of prematurely, and assist preserve sources.
Customer tales that showcase how Cisco IoT options have helped them with their targets might be discovered right here.
Do you do something in your private life to advertise circularity? If so, what recommendation would you give others?
Sripriya: In my private life, I try to advertise circularity by adopting a minimalist way of life. This journey started throughout my time within the United States, the place I targeted on buying solely important objects and utilizing reusable baggage for grocery procuring to keep away from plastic waste. Choosing an electrical or hybrid automobile over a standard gas-powered car was one other important step that I took, in addition to taking public transportation.
Recently, I relocated to India to be nearer to my household and take care of my growing older dad and mom. Here, I’ve observed important challenges relating to waste administration and environmental consciousness. While there’s rising consciousness about plastic air pollution in some nations, in India, this understanding is commonly restricted to sure city areas.
Despite these challenges, I purpose to affect my neighborhood by advocating for easy way of life adjustments that scale back consumption and promote accountable residing. Encouraging folks to think about the need of their purchases and search higher, extra sustainable choices is vital. It’s about making acutely aware decisions and recognizing that there are at all times alternate options which are higher for the atmosphere.
I additionally imagine in main by instance and sharing data with others to encourage them to develop into environmental advocates. By fostering discussions about sustainability, I hope to contribute to a extra accountable and environmentally acutely aware world. These small actions in my each day life replicate my dedication to selling circularity and inspiring others to do the identical.
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