Cisco's New Focus on Conflict Minerals

Cisco is a company that already has a robust CSR program and their focus for 2012 is conflict minerals. This week they released their CSR report for 2011 highlighting some of their achievements and plans for the future. Since the Dodd-Frank act was passed, conflict minerals have become a focus for many electronic companies. Cisco is currently working with the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition on the conflict minerals issue. According to the Dodd-Frank act, publicly traded companies are supposed to disclose where they source their minerals from. Minerals mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central Africa are often termed as conflict minerals because proceeds from the sales go towards funding the militia. Minerals from this region include gold, tungsten and tin.  According to their new report Cisco has managed to meet several targets that they have set for themselves:

• The company reports that it is on track to meet its commitment to reduce all Scope 1, 2 and business-air-travel Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by calendar year 2012. (That was against a 2007 baseline).
• 100 percent of the contract manufacturers it counts as first tier partners report to the Carbon Disclosure Project.
• Amount of operational waste generated was down.
• In its 2011 fiscal year, Cisco reduced its energy usage by approximately 16.9  million kilowatt-hours. That had the effect of helping it avoid 7,400 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. That reduction didn’t come without an investment: Cisco put $1.9 million into energy conservation projects.

This year they also want to focus on other supply chain issues and they have pledged that ,“to enhance our commitment to working responsibly, in FY2012 we are conducting an indepth review to assess and further strengthen our work to promote responsible business practices across our supply chain.”

Out of the five areas of focus on the report, Cisco focuses most on environmental issues and dedicates more than half the report to their targets in this area. The following are the highlights of environmental initiatives taken by the company recently:

• Considering on PV solar arrays at two Cisco data centers.
• A more detailed examination of life cycle emissions in the CSR report
• Due diligence on biodiversity and land use
• More focus on waste management including controlled substances, product end of life, product packaging end of life and trash from operations.