How digital solutions are enabling sustainable transformations

In this episode of the Sustainability Matters podcast, the speakers discuss how companies can adapt digital transformation strategies to ensure long-term sustainability.

Key takeaways:

Digital technologies, like AI and automation, have the potential to transform the environmental impact of companies, reducing waste and lowering energy use.
There are environmental impact risks posed by intensive energy users like the ICT sector and cloud service providers if not powered by clean energy.
Sustainability needs to be integral to business strategy with an emphasis on a “regenerative future”.
Challenges include managing greenhouse gas emissions, addressing digital equity issues and appreciating the role of nature-based solutions in mitigating climate change. Companies should increase their commitment to transparency and accountability, and look to create partnerships in their value chain.

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For your convenience, full text transcript of this podcast is also available.

Bruno Sarda

Hello, and welcome to the EY Sustainability Matters Podcast, our regular look at ESG and sustainability topics, and how they impact businesses around the globe. I'm Bruno Sarda, Climate Change and Sustainability Partner at Ernst and Young LLP, and your host for this series. In today's episode, we will discuss the important intersection of information technology, business, and sustainability, and how companies can use technology to adapt and innovate for a more sustainable future.
Accelerated by the pandemic, and new ways of working, organizations worldwide are seizing the opportunity to digitize their operations. They're migrating platforms and applications into the cloud, diving into the realms of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and with this transition there's the opportunity for digitization to be sustainable and to accelerate climate action. It can reduce the materials, the waste, the energy required to deliver products and services, which are key drivers of dematerialization for companies.
Electronic records and transactions replace paper, and innovations like tokenization of emissions and the internet of things technology provide higher-quality information for informed decision-making. So, opportunities exist for enterprises that can harness the value of data to drive sustainability initiatives and action. However, the path to digital transformation is not without its own challenges, if not executed sustainably, it could actually exact a steep toll on our planet, and cloud service providers and data farms and applications, like AI or crypto currencies, are very large energy users, and, unless powered by clean energy, can have their own huge carbon footprint.
In fact, the global information and communication technology sector, or ICT, is predicted to account for about 14% of global emissions by 2040, and global electronic waste estimated to grow about 26% to nearly 75 million metric tons by 2030. So, to navigate this digital frontier responsibly, companies must integrate sustainability into their digital transformation road maps. What they need are digital and data systems capable of managing ESG performance and expediting the execution of their sustainability strategies, but it's not just about environmental considerations.
Emerging technologies like AI and automation may offer significant business benefits, but must be deployed responsibly, considering the complex social dimensions that span ethics, privacy, information security, digital equity, or human rights, to name a few. So, in today's episode we'll dive deeper into these critical topics with our esteemed guest Mary de Wysocki, who is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Cisco. Cisco has been at the forefront of these questions for a long time, both setting standards for transparency as early adopters of the CDP or Carbon Disclosure Project, active participants in the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, now called The Responsible Business Association, but also by helping companies use technology to support their own sustainability goals and commitments. It's a pleasure having you here, Mary, thanks so much for joining us today to discuss how companies can move toward a more sustainable and technologically empowered future. So, Mary, maybe let's start with how does Cisco approach sustainability, and how and where does it fit into your business strategy.

Mary de Wysocki

Thank you, Bruno, and thanks so much for having me today. You know, it's almost 40 years ago where Cisco played such a large role in the digital transformation, and I think about climate change, it's the crisis of our lifetime, and we know that the progress we make this decade is critical for future generations, and so, when I think about what we have to do, right? Phase out the use of fossil fuels, address a century's worth of pollution, you know, I think we can create opportunities for communities around the world.
We're really focusing on moving toward a sustainable future, and I think we can do that if we also collaborate with our customers, our partners, our communities around the world, and so, at Cisco, we're really embedding sustainability into how we operate, and I mention kind of sustainable future, and quite frankly, we need to move beyond that. We need to move into what we would call a regenerative one, and when I use the word regenerative or regeneration, it really is about moving beyond that mindset of do no harm, into one where we're building the capacity of social environmental systems to heal and thrive, and we think it's possible, and so, we have three priorities in our environmental strategy.
So, first, it's about how do we accelerate the transition to clean energy and decarbonization, and we know our products and solutions can help accelerate that, and we've got a lot of history within Cisco. We've got 15 years of setting and achieving greenhouse gas reduction goals, in Scope 1 and 2, we think we can really help our customers in their own journey, and technology plays such a critical role in this clean energy transition.
We can't make that clean energy future without smart, modern, secure smart grids. The second priority is continuing to evolve our business from linear to circular. From linear to make, use, dispose into one where we're designing our products and packaging, to really design out waste, drive energy efficiency, to think about multiple lifecycles, and the third priority is really investing in resilient ecosystems. You know, we all know that companies are only as resilient as the communities, the economies, the societies, the ecosystems in which we operate in, and we need to help communities adapt to this new climate reality that we can help build the skills and the capacity of communities, invest in new technologies to protect and restore ecosystems, but, as you well know, Bruno, all of this is underpinned by really strong governance, right? Ensuring that the claims we make when you hear us talk about sustainability, it really is built on a strong foundation of trust and integrity.

Sarda

Yeah, that's great. Thanks, Mary, you touched on so many interesting topics. I mean, today, you know, this intersection of technology and sustainability is really at the heart of our conversation, and, in fact, you know, you have been, like you said, for decades, and still, you know, been supplying many of the world's leading companies and helping them really make better use of technology, so, how do you approach that? What are you hearing from them? How do you engage, especially the technology leaders and companies who are, not always, frankly, at the table in those sustainability conversations, and, maybe, what do you wish leaders like a Chief Information Officer, or a Chief Technology Officer, to, maybe, do more when it comes to sustainability?

Wysocki

Yeah, thanks, Bruno. You know, when I think a bit about technology, innovation, it's played such a real pivotal role in our advancement to date, but so much of that has been powered by fossil fuels, right? So, how do we make that transition? So, 40 years of working with customers, we've got such a strong, global customer base, and our sales team really has a trusted relationship as they really grapple with how technology can enable those business outcomes in the most secure way.
And now, we're adding an additional conversation on top of that, not just the most efficient, the most secure, but now the most sustainable way as well. And I think this is really... it's been so helpful of our sales team having that relationship, because now we can bring in, often another layer into that conversation. So, when I think a bit about some of the conversations that we talk about, for example, hybrid work, hybrid communication, I mean, how we're communicating right now is allowing us to meet virtually, and I think, sometimes, the technology leaders think about, “Well, how's the voice quality and the video quality, and is it really creating that experience?", but they're also, quite frankly, Bruno, we know can have a sustainability positive impact as well, because we're not travelling across the river, or probably under the [LAUGHS] river to come together in person. So, I think part of this is helping our technology leaders understand what I would call those, kind of, environmental impact.
Often, we talk about energy efficiency, energy usage, the ability to monitor that energy usage. I think, sometimes, when we even talk about the future of work and how we now design buildings, to not only be smart, but how we can use different technologies, right? To enable new capabilities. For those of you online, I live in New York City, and so, our most recent, kind of hybrid smart building is our PENN1 office, and what I love about that is, working with technology leaders that come in, and they look at the collaboration technology and how we design the room to really benefit from the type of work we want, but then, we talk about, oh, and look at POE - or Power over Ethernet, and how we're using that technology to power the lights, to power the window shades, to really understand office occupancy.
So, to me, it's a real exchange of information, right? I can often come in and help our technology leaders understand the urgency of now, and how climate change is the crisis of our lifetime, and we believe technology, if meaningfully deployed, can really play such a transformative impact, and, at the same time, those technology leaders, with their knowledge of technology, can apply it to some of the urgent issues that we have. So, it's a real partnership. One of the most interesting things, I think, even how we engage our technology leaders, or even our engineers, this is a new issue, this is a new problem for them to solve, so it really drives a lot of information, but it's a real exchange. It's sharing knowledge and making those connections.

Sarda

Yeah, I mean, that's such an important part, because, you know, everybody in an organization is focused on either deploying their functional expertise, pursuing their functional agenda. Many organizations, certainly the ones we work with, also, all of them have some form of ambitious digital transformation strategy or agenda.
There's not an organization I can think of, in any sector of the economy, thinking, we need to do less with digital technologies, but, to your point, there's so many ways to layer that. Maybe, with some of the examples you shared or others you know, how do the businesses you work with best, kind of, align their sustainability commitments to this opportunity of digital transformation and the agenda they're pursuing in that direction?

Wysocki

You know, one kind of way of thinking about it that I sometimes think is helpful is, you might think about footprint and handprints, so to speak, right? There's a lot of research out there that says the technology industry accounts for about two to four percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but if you actually apply technology to address some of those big issues, those big business problems, it could suppress about 15%, and that kind of handprint is much bigger than the actual footprint. So, I do think that that's one of the most important, kind of, ways of thinking about this. And I just think it's adding in, sometimes, the additional environmental piece to the puzzle.
I always, when I grapple with this is, sometimes start with the actual product itself, and how are you designing it? So, in 2020, we introduced at Cisco, what we call Circular Design Principles, helping our engineers think about, not just the business outcome and the cost of developing a particular product, but how do they design out waste? How do they really respect the finite resources on the planet? How are they really driving energy efficiency? Are they making it very modular, so it's very easily upgraded? Is it really easy to repair? Update software? That kind of thing. So, I always think a bit first about how are you designing the actual product. But then it's how you design it for the particular customer, how do you architect the solution? What's really interesting, Bruno, is if you, kind of, look at how technology evolves, often, the current architecture, that current solution out there in a company headquarters or in a data center, when you refresh it with the latest technology, it's usually much more energy efficient.
The actual products themselves are often much smaller as well. So, there's a huge opportunity to refresh with the latest technology, and helping our technology leaders think through that. I do think, it's almost, sometimes, like, how do you almost envision what's possible, in terms of applying technology to the business issue, and, at the same time, always thinking about, well, how do we minimize the environmental impact of the solution as well?

Sarda

Yeah, and I love that concept of the footprint and the hand print, because it's not always visible, and, you know, I remember, even years ago, people talking about things like emails, saying, "Oh, you know, all this energy used for email", but not, necessarily, thinking about all of what was being displaced, you know, and same with our digital calendars, and our digital tool pads, all the paper, all the envelopes, all the shipping and the mailing that was reduced, and so, yes, technology's footprint increased, as a result of these new, digital communication technologies.
You mentioned also this digital platform we're using to talk right now, from, you know, a distance away, and that platform has a footprint, but it's negligible compared to the handprint that is gained by not having to physically travel to meet, to be in a physical studio, those kinds of things. So that's terrific. You know, you said something earlier that I want to come back to. You talked about the importance of governance, because all of this change, all of this transformation is happening in a rapid pace in a relatively fluid environment, you know, geopolitical, regulatory, etc., and given the changing and complex nature of the sustainability regulatory environment, why is it important for companies to actually better leverage digital systems, technologies, how can those systems, in fact, help them better understand, manage both reporting requirements, manage their own outputs, and report out credible data?

Wysocki

Hmm. Thank you, Bruno. You know, we've actually been reporting our environmental impact since 2005, so, almost 20 years. So, we've had a lot of history in writing, there were social impacts, citizenships, CSR, now purpose reports, and what was interesting is, you know, they would grow from 15 pages, and then 100, 150 pages, and we, ultimately, developed on the Cisco website an ESG hub, so that people could find information, you could search for it. You could find both current as well as historical, and really get deep detail on this strategic approach.
But, I think, now that sustainability is so important. It's important to citizens. Our early in career, it's fascinating, you know, how many people tell me, before they even interview for Cisco, they go look at our Purpose Report, to understand what our goals are, and what our progress to date has been, to make those goals real. Our customers, our stakeholders, our investors are all really, interested. It's a very important priority for them to understand where we are. So, one of the things that we've been working on, over the last year, is really focusing on what I would call, a data foundation. What is that data strategy to really create consistent sustainability data across our entire enterprise? On top of that, how do we start thinking about this the same way that our finance colleagues think about all other business data? Really identifying that business owner.
How are you putting controls in place, and ultimately, how are you digitizing that? And, why that's so important is, if you skip and jump to digitizing, you might have a fantastic dashboard, but the data isn't as reliable as you need it to be. You know, we talked a little bit about how important that customer relationship, that customer trust is, that is so important to us that, when a customer, a supplier, a stakeholder partner sees a sustainability claim, they know that it's gone through rigorous reviews by that subject matter expert by our own Chief Sustainability Officer, as well as finance and legal, to really make sure that it's trusted and valid. I think, as you develop that foundation now, you have the ability to do a whole lot with that data.
Now, you can pull it into APIs that would power an energy management monitoring system where customers can modify devices, and turn or put things into idle, or really think about where their network traffic traverses, but it's so important for us as well. When I think about sustainability, our net-zero goals, we have a net-zero goal across our value chain, by 2040. This is a Little different than, sometimes, business strategies where you think about two to three years out, I’ve got to think two to three years, as well as five, ten, 15, 20 years, and the data allows us to really understand progress, what those insights are, and allows us internally as well as externally, to really harness the power of data. II mentioned that 20 years of reporting our environmental impact, it's also important to report out your climate data to organizations like CDP, formally known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, makes it transparent. We've also had the good fortune of being on the A list, seven out of the eight years that A list has been around. I also mentioned our net-zero goal. It's SBTI validated, and, as part of that validation, you do need to report out your climate data to CDP, so, it all comes right back to that foundation, right? If you don't have good data where you report it to just creates, I think, more distrust.

Sarda

Yeah, I know, thanks, Mary it's been, for sure an inspiring journey to watch, the path you've laid for many of your peers in the industry, and, you know, when we think of governance in the space and innovation, you know, these days, we hear a lot about a more digital future that includes more automation, more artificial intelligence, built on top of large language models, or things like blockchain and tokenization of things like even money like crypto currencies, or the metaverse, and there's this future, which we hope is a more sustainable future, but what does that take? You talked about design a little bit earlier. I'd love to hear more about that, so from the start, what goes into innovation, and then based on what comes out, how is that managed?

Wysocki

Yeah, thanks, Bruno. So, yes, in my opinion it does start with design, and it really first starts with, what are those design principles? I mentioned a few, like modularization, right? Energy efficiency, thinking about recycled or renewable materials and, as you do that, one of the first things is, you can create those principles, but now, you actually have to create an education program, so that your engineers can understand. So that was the very next step after the principles, how do we develop an education program, and have all of our engineers go through that training.
Quite frankly, Bruno, that's my leading indicator, right? I'm watching how many engineers took that training, passed that training, and then, you start, quite frankly, scoring the product, and you can score it from the engineering side as you go through all of those principles, as well as, as it moves into supply chain and manufacturing, on the packaging side as well. So, that ability to score a product as you go through this development really allows us to understand how we're meeting that goal, and we're well on our way to 100% of all packaging, all product, using these circular design principles, and we're going to touch a bit upon that energy efficiency is so important, right?
And this has been almost an engineering innovation challenge since the beginning of technology, of how do you do more? Everything in the technology space uses some form of energy or electricity, so it's always been, kind of, an engineering challenge. It's like, always think about more band width. At the same time, for example, lowering energy, consumption, and a great example, I think, is, an A6 chip, which, actually Cisco manufactures, it's called Silicon One, and, when it's put into a particular router, I'll give you an example, the 8201 Router, when you put this chip into that router, it uses 90% less energy, at the same time, providing 35% more bandwidth, compared to the prior generation.
That's the kind of innovation that'll tell you our engineers love to solve. So, I think, as we continue thinking about even more advanced technology, you'll always have that mindset, always going back and forth of going, a technology innovation, but now, let's make sure we're designing in the most responsible way, and I think about just responsible technology, right? Always thinking about, are we designing for transparency, fairness, accountability, privacy is a critical, kind of, design criteria here, security and reliability, you know, you add all of that into the mix as well.
I also think, on the flip side, I always think about, well, what can technology do to solve some of the biggest issues that we're facing? And this is where, in 2021 through the Cisco Foundation, we made a public commitment to invest US$100 million to support climate action, and I'll give you one example of using technology. One of our grantees, Vibrant Planet, uses lidar and satellite to map a forest floor. Why is that important? All of us, I think, have, somehow, experienced the impact of wildfires, whether in your own neighborhood and the devastation that can take place, or, as I mentioned, I'm in New York, and most recently, right, all of the smoke that came down here from the Canadian wildfires, right? This is another threat that is just increasing in frequency as well as Severity.
So, Vibrant Planet, if you can map a forest floor and where we need to do that proactive land management to decrease wildfires and, often, we'll use indigenous knowledge to do that forest management. This information is open source to community. So, a great example of how you can use technology to proactively, hopefully, right, address some of the most challenging parts of climate change, and I just think about it from that side. We know climate change, right? More severe weather, which means more severe droughts, which means often, famine, which often then requires us to address conflict around the world. So, you know, when I think about the climate crisis, there are so many areas that you can think about the impact to the community, but, vice versa, how are we helping that community adapt to the new reality?

Sarda

Yeah, that's a great example, the suffocation that followed these wildfires that seemed so far away, I think, made it very starkly real for many people that climate impacts can have truly these ripple effects. And as all of this, you know, scaling up of these powerful digital technologies, whether it’s satellite, cloud, we've seen in other parts of industry, when we hyper scale things up sometimes, that can lead to potentially, externalizing either the responsibility, or even the operation-ability of these tools, so when we look, for example, at the race to the cloud, as it's often called, how has this played out, from an environmental perspective, and how have business approached or mitigated the fact that they've, maybe, now moved things out of their own operational control, maybe out of their scope one or scope two emissions and how have these large cloud service providers, hyper scalers, you know, approached things like clean energy to mitigate that potential risk?

Wysocki

Yeah, it's so interesting. I think, sometimes, I think about it at the most abstract, where you can see, countries, communities, making sustainability commitments, commitments to net-zero, and we all operate within those communities, those states, those countries, and, when you think about these cloud service providers, they are often making their own net-zero commitment as well.
So, I completely agree, Bruno, you are seeing more and more cloud service providers making ambitious net-zero commitments that requires them, often to power their data centers with renewable energy, and I think the stat around data centers, I think it's about one percent. Data centers are responsible for one percent of all emissions, globally, so this is a rich area of data center modernization, talking about what is that current technology and refreshing it with the more energy efficient technology. Also, when, sometimes, you refresh, there's also a significant decrease in size of the technology, which can have a decreased energy consumption there as well.
Sometimes, I think about, one of our data center solutions, the UCSX Server, and, like the original size, and now, how those engineers have been able to design it down to the size of a pizza box. So, significant investment in innovation and energy efficiency, but, also, in how you actually build the product. So, what I see is, more commitment to adoption of renewable energy. We, for example in our own offices and data centers, we have a public commitment. It’s our interim milestone for our 2040 net-zero goal, to reduce our scope one and two emissions by 90% by 2025, and we're doing that through the increasing use of power purchase agreements, which is, basically, investing in net new.
renewable energy projects. Why I think this is important, and why this kind of race to the cloud actually is helpful, is it sends more signals to utility companies, energy providers, that there is a demand for renewable energy, those wind, solar, other type of renewables, that demand signals creates, to me, more of an economic model, and often, you're seeing prices much more competitive in this space as well. So, to me, when I think about this race to the cloud, it's data center monetization, it's thinking about the use of energy and, I'll tell you, what's interesting as well, is often, when you think sustainability, we talk about energy, energy efficiency, because it's almost, kind of the easiest thing, sometimes, to see, right? We know that burning fossil fuels created greenhouse gas effect, which is creating climate change, but probably, what I'm also hearing, especially from our cloud service providers, is also the circularity concept. Because of the interdependency, when you think about greenhouse gas protocol, they're also asking more and more questions and requirements around circularity of your products and how are you designing the products, using even more combination of new and remanufactured product, sometimes in their portfolio.
And what I'm hearing next, and Bruno, I know you're hearing this as well, is "What are you doing about water?", "How are you supporting biodiversity?". So, it's so fascinating when I think about where the conversation starts with energy, but it quickly morphs into circularity, water, biodiversity as well. At the end of the day, it's all about partnerships, and I'll also just kind of connect when I think about service providers, and it's almost, like, that network of data and voice and content around the world, that's why when I think about the smart grids exactly the same on the electricity side, where it also needs to be modern, it also has to be smart, it has to be secure, right? And, that we're providing that intelligence across whether it's the data in the voice, and the content side, or the energy side.

Sarda

Yeah, you just mentioned the word partnership, and earlier, you talked about some of the language that's sometimes used to describe some of these activities around things like corporate citizenship, or purpose, and, you know, you mentioned you've been, now, on the forefront of transparency for nearly two decades, but another area where Cisco has been really at the forefront, is this idea of industry collaboration and partnership, and recognizing where your own intellectual property and capabilities play, but, also, it's the importance of everybody coming together. How important has that been in really advancing these sustainable digital transformations?

Wysocki

You know, we're just not going to get to that climate future if we don't partner, and, as I mentioned, I think the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, if there wasn't enough partnership going on without it, it creates that interdependency. So, when I think even about Cisco's own footprint, the vast majority, about 65%, I'm responsible for the electricity needed to power our products out there in the customer, in their offices, in their data centers.
Another big part is our suppliers. So, there's such an interdependency, just built into how we think about achieving some of our sustainability goals. But then, I think about, well, how do we solve some of the world's biggest issues and come up with brand new business models that partnerships are so critical? I think a bit about one of the utility providers in Italy that we've partnered really closely with in their early days. They were really early adopters of technology, but we helped them, almost with that very first smart meter on the grid, and now, they're one of the largest providers of renewable energy around the world, and we co-developed the solutions together.
And when we thought about, well, we're going from centralized to decentralized, kind of a network, the ability for our engineers and theirs to come together and go, "Let's design a new sub-station IOT monitoring capability, and be able to pilot that, and then, scale it across the board", when I think about just some of the partnerships needed for smart buildings today. We're all grappling with, as we're coming out of the worst of COVID, what does the future of work look like? And, often, then this means, well, what does our office need to look like? What does that office experience need to look like? And so, even when I think about that, the partnership with furniture designers to come up with that room where the collaboration works well for people in the office as well as at home, the partnership with building management systems, right? So, we're sharing information across the board. This kind of, OT-IT partnership. Partnerships with various device manufacturers.
I mentioned the ability now to power every lighting system on our floor or the window. So, you can think about partnerships to develop a holistic solution that really works and is scalable, and is providing that value that you're hoping for, but then, I think you can also look at some of the really interesting partnerships, even as we grapple with the demands and adoption of EVs (electronic vehicles – edit.), and really now going, well, this is interesting. Now, how do we actually think about powering EVs at home and at the office, and is there something about EV-to-the-grid, this concept of those pro consumers is a whole other way where you might be tackling, kind of an interesting business problem together? I do think that the only way we're going to hit any of the meaningful sustainability goals or just create a climate future for the next generation, we've got to partner together.
I think one of the interesting partnerships is Global Citizen, and Global Citizen is a non-profit that really creates the voice of people around the world in one way to alleviate poverty, but they're really focusing on, how do we really support an enable a climate future? And we gathered together public sector and private sector to have conversations about the importance of us working together. Civil society, how we're coming together with different voices. I was on an interesting panel where this young activist who's bringing indigenous knowledge and kind of, the voice of Mother Earth to the conversation, conservationists that were talking about, "Yes, we've got to think about energy, but we've got to think about supporting nature and making a nature positive value chain", and other private sector companies all coming together.
We need public-private partnerships to really think about the policies, and, Bruno, as you mentioned, how are we demonstrating, right, our progress in a way that's verifiable and important? This is the decade for us to think about partnerships in a much more different way, up and down our value chain, up and down generations, so that we're really coming together to create that inclusive future for all.

Sarda

Yeah, I love that, and you know, we've covered so much ground already. A lot of environmental and some social and governance dimensions, before we close, I'd love to get your thoughts on some of these further social implications of digitization, you know, sometimes, we hear about things, like digital divide, digital inclusion, but also, digital enablement, and whether it's from the growth of hybrid working to, maybe, people who have mobility challenges, who have, you know, childcare issues, that can make it easier for them to participate in the economy, other digital technologies could become barriers, if you lack, frankly, even affordable or reliable energy sources or cost. How has Cisco approached some of these questions, because I know this is an area where you've done a lot and covered a lot in your Purpose Report?

Wysocki

Thank you, and this is where our firm priority in our environmental strategy's all about investing in resilient ecosystems, and so, you can think about resiliency in the communities along a number of fronts. One: Are they able to adapt to the new climate reality? That's going to look different, depending upon where you are. Do they have the skills and talent to really make that transition? And, we've had 25 years of our own Networking Academy Program, and, quite frankly, Bruno, it was designed 25 years ago because we were building products, these routers and switches, and there was no one out there with the skills to install it or deploy it, so we built Networking Academy.
It's in countries around the world to develop those technology skills. So, as we transition to both digital and low carbon, there will be new skills adding to those digitizations. I think, the other key thing is how we're harnessing these new technologies I mentioned to restore ecosystems and biodiversity. A good example of one of our Cisco Foundation non-profit partners that I'm so excited about, and, in the lab, a mineral called olivine, when weathered on a beach, absorbs gigatons of carbon. Gigatons. So, where we're partnering with them is, actually, on the ground, real life pilots. So, the pilot that we invested on the evaluation of was right out here, in New York, in the Hamptons, in South Hampton, where they put olivine on the beach, and the ability to monitor that and say, "How much carbon is it absorbing?" But, equally important, "Is there any negative impact to the acidity of the ocean or biodiversity?" So, that is a great example where, if we can figure out if that is a replicable, scalable solution: a huge impact.
I think, Bruno, you probably know this better than I do, but I believe nature based decarbonization or nature-based solutions that can absorb carbon, it could address 30% of our global emissions. So, supporting some of these nature-based solutions are really important as well, and I think we can play our strong role in ensuring that there's valid data. I think, one of the other critical parts, as you think about the intersection of climate, and, Bruno, you mentioned this is, you know, the people that are most impacted by climate change are the most underserved communities: I had the privilege of visiting a refugee camp, and I think, sometimes, when we all think about refugees we think, oh, well, they're there for nine months, a year. Unfortunately, often, these refugees are in these camps for decades.
A long time, and so, we work with Mercy Corps to install Meraki high-performing Wi-Fi to bring the internet to some of these refugee camps around the world, but we work with Mercy Corps significantly around supporting, kind of the migrant movement. But now, we're focusing on the climate with them as well, and how do we invest in early-stage solutions? It's part of the design of Cisco Foundation grants. There is, just like in any venture capital, there are more investments, kind of, when there's solutions proven. We go where it hasn't yet been proven, so we invest in early-stage solutions. Helping sometimes pilot a solution, often. In our non-profits it's about, how do we digitize their ideas, and then, kind of, help them all the way from pilot to replication and scale. I think this is where it's so important to think about the climate future. We have to create resilient communities. It's not only good business continuity, but it's so important to create opportunities for all. So, when I think just about Cisco's purpose to power an inclusive future for all, it has to be inclusive, and there's no future without a healthy planet.

Sarda

Well, that's a great way to end our conversation. I wish we could keep going, because there's so much, but, Mary, thanks so much for sharing both these keen insights, but also these powerful examples, because, I think, as we talk about this decade of action and implementation, you know, beliefs and commitments and purpose matter a lot, but actions are what, ultimately, drive change and get measured and get reported, so great to hear about so many of the things that you've been leading at Cisco in that direction. So, thanks again for joining us for this conversation today.

Wysocki

And, Bruno, thank you for your leadership. So, appreciated.

Sarda

Thanks, Mary. As I said at the beginning of this episode, this is the Sustainability Matters Podcast. You can find all past episodes of the show on EY.com, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also now find the most recent episodes of our show on YouTube. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of Sustainability Matters, we'd love for you to subscribe, and rating, reviews and comments are also very welcome. Please also visit EY.com, where you'll find a wide range of related and interesting articles that will help put these bigger topics in the context of your business priorities.
I look forward to welcoming you on the next episode of Sustainability Matters. My name is Bruno Sarda. You can find me on LinkedIn, and feel free to connect with me there. Thanks so much for listening.

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Bruno Sarda

EY Americas Climate Change and Sustainability Services Leader

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Season 5, Episode 6

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44m 26s

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EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.

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