Building More Sustainable and Resilient Communities: An Interview With Cisco’s Chief Sustainability Officer

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / March 16, 2023 / Cisco's purpose is to Power an Inclusive Future for All, and this includes ensuring a sustainable and regenerative future for our planet. We're leveraging our scale and innovation to help ensure that our increasingly digital future is sustainable, fair, and resilient. We are doing this by decarbonizing our operations, supply chain, and products; transitioning to renewable energy; and helping customers and communities reduce their impacts and adapt to a changing world.

Mary de Wysocki, Cisco's first Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), shares her experience designing for impact, her objectives as she leads Cisco's sustainability efforts, and how we can work together to create more sustainable and resilient communities.

Before stepping into this role, you led Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), education, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) initiatives for Cisco. How did that experience provide a foundation for the work you are focusing on today?

Mary: The learnings I've had on a purely social impact side over the last 20 years have allowed me to understand the philosophy of shared value, which was first introduced in 2011. Shared value is how a company can have policies and practices that help to advance the business while also helping individuals and communities where it operates thrive. Think of it like an expanding sphere of influence. Our purpose builds on and deepens this philosophy. When we say we are Powering an Inclusive Future for All, we mean for our business and our communities, our customers, partners, suppliers and other stakeholders. These groups are linked, and we can only achieve an inclusive future for all by all - meaning by working in partnership towards common goals.

There is also the Theory of Change, which is a methodology that explains how taking certain steps can lead to specific changes. Through my prior roles, I've seen the difference between theory and what you need to do on the ground to make an impact. For example, after Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, Cisco wanted to help the affected communities, and we felt that the communities couldn't recover if they didn't have schools up and working. So, I went to New Orleans and Mississippi to develop Cisco's 21^st Century Schools Initiative with local school districts. This experience allowed me to think beyond the initial response and focus long-term: how can we create resilient communities?