To be hosted in the Cisco Webex control hub from this Summer, the new environmental impact tracker will provide reports and recommendations around how its customers can optimise energy consumption and usage of devices.
Presented in a single view, the tool will be enabled by default for IT administration staff, and will allow users to:
- report estimated energy usage and related carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions from Cisco collaboration devices, with calculations based on formulas from recognised governmental authorities.
- view emissions trends over time to track progress towards sustainability goals.
- guide administrators to enable features like Webex’s Office Hours to reduce their energy usage.
This data can also be exported through an API for integration into customer sustainability reporting tools.
The Office Hours feature in Webex, which was made available two months ago, can be used to find and switch off any Cisco devices that don’t need to be utilised during a certain time frame.
It’s predicted by Cisco that up to 13.6 megawatt hours (Mwh) can be saved annually by switching off 40 75-inch Webex Board Pro devices for 12 hours per day.
Today’s sustainability release comes in line with Cisco’s own net zero target — to reach this milestone by 2040.
“At Cisco, we’re laser-focused on helping to create a more sustainable and positive impact across the globe,” says Jeetu Patel, executive vice-president and general manager, security and collaboration at Cisco.
“Critical to our mission of designing products and solutions with circular design principles in mind is helping our customers meet their environment, sustainability and governance goals, and we’re the only company to offer a feature of this kind.”
According to Gartner, CEOs placed environmental sustainability in their top 10 strategic business priorities for the first time this past year, with environmental sustainability cited in the top three of 80 per cent of CEOs’ drivers of value.
Related:
Emerging sustainable technologies – expert predictions — Harnessing emerging sustainable technologies including solar and wind energy transmitted through hi-voltage undersea cabling could mean we end up with surplus energy, not power outages. Here are some expert predictions on future tech sustainability.
Trends in data centre sustainability — The power-hungry data centre industry has pledged to go net-zero by 2030. We talk to data centre designers and operators about the latest trends in data centre sustainability.
