Table of Contents
I am honored — and deeply proud — to share a milestone that speaks to what’s possible when innovation and purpose move in lockstep. Cisco has reached its goal to incorporate Circular Design Principles into 100% of new products and packaging by the end of our 2025 fiscal year.
This goal, first set in 2019, reflects years of partnership, persistence, and creative problem-solving across our teams. By designing with circularity in mind, we’re minimizing waste, extending product life, meeting customer expectations, and driving innovation.
Adding to this moment, Cisco was also recognized with the 2025 Reuters Global Sustainability Award for Circularity — a tremendous acknowledgment of how far we’ve come. This recognition underscores our commitment to reimagining how technology is designed, built, used and reused as we continue our transition from a linear to a circular business model.
Our circular design journey
Cisco has a detailed framework of 25 Circular Design Principles that guide decisions across hardware, packaging, sourcing, and repairability — supporting consistency, scale, and accountability.
Today, we can proudly say we have reached our goal, but this achievement is not just a number. It’s a story of innovation, commitment, and collaboration:
- Over 7,000 Cisco employees have completed our circular design training. Our engineers and packaging designers have embraced Circular Design Principles, while executive support helped scale these efforts and achieve broad participation across the company.
- Our web-based Circular Design Evaluation Tool now guides every new product and packaging design; products must meet our rigorous Circular Design Principles and score at least 75% before being released.
- We have hosted teardown events with engineers, marketers, and supply chain partners, collectively analyzing products to find new ways to innovate for sustainability.
- We’ve celebrated innovative breakthroughs. The Webex Room Bar is one product that exemplifies Cisco’s circular design strategy, saving over 32,000 pounds of material annually, using 55% recycled plastic, and eliminating foam in packaging.
- Our governance model with its Steering, Oversight, and Audit committees, keeps us aligned, accountable, and always pushing for better.
- Cisco created a Sustainability Data Foundation to consolidate and govern sustainability data, including circular design. This platform enables precise analysis and reporting, such as estimating product carbon footprints to better understand the benefits and efficiencies of circular design principles.
- These activities have been captured in our Purpose Reporting Hub and annual Purpose Report, highlighting Cisco’s commitment to transparency and measurable progress.
- And our cross-functional team’s dedication was recognized with a 2024 Cisco Pinnacle Award — the highest honor for product and engineering innovation at Cisco.
Each of these milestones represents countless hours of effort, feedback, and partnership across our organization and with our supply chain partners. It’s a testament to what’s possible when we work together toward a common purpose.
Why circular design matters
As the worldwide leader in technology that powers the Internet, Cisco’s commitment has global reach. Cisco advances industry momentum by sharing circular design best practices with global peers via groups like the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Economic Forum’s Circular Transformation of Industries initiative. For our communities, circular design translates into less waste heading to landfills and more efficient use of the resources we all share. It’s about creating lasting, positive change in the places where we live and work.
From a business perspective, circular design is equally powerful. As more digital infrastructure is built to support artificial intelligence (AI) deployments, circularity helps make the best use of critical raw materials and extends product life through techniques like modularity. By designing products that can be upgraded and repaired, we’re able to extend their useful life, which means customers get more value over time. This approach also helps us reduce costs by saving on energy and materials, while supporting our business and sustainability goals. For example, eliminating oil-based paint from the Catalyst 9000 product resulted in $9 million in savings while also reducing about 318 metric tonnes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and about 3,400 metric tonnes CO2e between Cisco’s fiscal years 2020 – 2025. In the end, circular design makes good business sense and helps us deliver even greater value to our customers, partners, and suppliers.
This is just the beginning
But this isn’t the finish line — it’s just the beginning. As we move forward, we are committed to evolving our Circular Design Principles, learning from our experiences, responding to customer needs, and continuing to embed sustainability across our business.
Thank you to everyone — our teams, partners, and suppliers — who helped us reach this incredible moment. Together, we’re transforming our products and packaging in ways that benefit our business, our communities, and the environment.
