Cisco's Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship: A Guide to Supplier Emissions Reporting

Cisco is one of the world's largest technology companies, best known for its networking hardware, software and IT infrastructure. Like many other large tech companies, most of its emissions come from Scope 3 rather than its own operations. Its supply chain alone, the businesses that make, move and support its products, accounts for around 34% of its total greenhouse gas footprint.

That is why Cisco asks its suppliers a direct question, and increasingly expects a credible answer: what are your emissions, and what are you doing to reduce them?

The programme behind that question is Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship. For suppliers, the headline is simple. To keep doing business with Cisco, you are expected to measure your carbon footprint, report it publicly through CDP, set a target to reduce it, and show progress each year.

This is not filed away under corporate responsibility. Emissions performance is scored in supplier scorecards and reviewed in Cisco's business reviews, so it feeds straight into how a supplier is judged. Cisco also treats sustained failure to meet its responsible-business standards as a serious issue, one that can affect a supplier's ability to keep working with it. In other words, weak emissions reporting can put the account itself at risk.

This guide covers what the programme is, who it applies to, the key dates, the specific obligations, and what you have to report.

What is Cisco's Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship?

Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship is the environmental strand of how Cisco manages its suppliers. In Cisco's terms, it is about working with suppliers to use natural resources efficiently, reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and improve the design of its products.

It sits underneath a bigger commitment. Cisco has a goal to reach Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions across its entire value chain by 2040. As a near-term step, it aims to cut its absolute Scope 3 emissions by 30% by its 2030 fiscal year, against a 2019 baseline. That target covers three areas: purchased goods and services, upstream transport and distribution, and the use of its products once sold.

Two of those areas are, in effect, other companies' emissions. The use of sold products is the single largest part of Cisco's footprint, and purchased goods and services, the emissions embedded in what its suppliers make and sell it, is the next. Cisco cannot move either number on its own. It needs suppliers to measure their emissions and bring them down, which is what the requirements below are built to make happen.

Who does Cisco's Supply Chain Environmental Stewardship apply to?

The environmental requirements apply broadly. Cisco states that all first- and second-tier suppliers must meet them, and the specific greenhouse gas reporting duty applies to supply chain hardware suppliers as well as service and logistics providers.

First-tier suppliers are the businesses Cisco buys from directly. Second-tier suppliers are one step further back: the companies that supply Cisco's direct suppliers. That reach matters, because it means you can be in scope even if you have no direct contract with Cisco, and simply provide something to a business that does. 

In practice, that pulls in a wide range of businesses:

• Manufacturing partners and contract manufacturers
• Component and materials suppliers
• Logistics and distribution providers
• Service suppliers that support the above

Not every requirement lands on every supplier in the same way. Some obligations, such as water reporting, apply specifically to manufacturing partners and component suppliers. But the core expectation, a complete emissions inventory reported to CDP with a public reduction target, is written to apply widely across Cisco's supply base.

The practical takeaway is the same one that applies to most large customers now. If Cisco is a customer, assume the emissions requirements are relevant to you and confirm where you sit, rather than assuming you are too small or too far down the chain to be in scope.

What are the key dates for Cisco suppliers?

Cisco runs its supplier requirements on an annual cadence. The dates that matter most for emissions reporting are the CDP window, which is when your disclosure is due, and the energy data Cisco collects from manufacturing partners.

Cisco notes that these are general guides and that specific requests and dates can change, so it is worth confirming your own timeline with your Cisco contact. But if you are planning backwards from a deadline, the September CDP due date is the one to build towards. 

What are Cisco's key environmental requirements for suppliers?

Cisco sets out a set of minimum compliance requirements for suppliers, which are assessed and scored in supplier scorecards. On the environmental side, suppliers are asked to report on and manage the following: 

• Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) standards. Suppliers are expected to operate at RBA Silver recognition or above at sites that build products or provide parts for Cisco.
• Greenhouse gas reporting. Publish a public, absolute greenhouse gas emissions reduction target and report emissions data via CDP every year. This is the obligation this guide focuses on.
• Water reporting. Manufacturing partners and component suppliers are also asked to report water data to CDP, including a corporate-level water response and a water-saving target.
• Responsible minerals. Provide Minerals Reporting Templates and work to remove high-risk smelters and refiners from the supply chain.

The RBA, water and minerals requirements are each their own areas of work. The emissions requirement is where a carbon partner is most useful, so that is where we will go into detail.

What do Cisco suppliers have to report on emissions?

Cisco requires in-scope suppliers to report their greenhouse gas emissions to CDP on an annual basis. Specifically, suppliers are asked to:

• Provide a complete and accurate inventory of corporate-wide Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and report on significant categories of their Scope 3.
• Make the response publicly available through the option CDP provides.
• Demonstrate verification, meaning a third-party review, of the reported emissions.
• Set a public, absolute reduction target and report annual progress against it.
• Ask their own suppliers and business partners to report to CDP in the same way.

A useful way to read this is that Cisco is not asking for a one-off number. It is asking for a full corporate footprint, checked by someone independent, made public, attached to a target, and updated every year. That combination is the standard to meet.

What does "publish a public absolute reduction target" mean?

This is the phrase suppliers most often misread, so it's worth unpacking.

Public means the target and your progress are disclosed through CDP's public option, not kept in an internal spreadsheet. Anyone, including Cisco, can see it.

Absolute means a target to cut your total tonnes of CO2e, rather than an intensity target such as emissions per employee or per unit of revenue. The distinction matters, because an intensity target can look like progress while your total emissions climb as the business grows. Cisco wants to see the total come down.

There's a nuance worth getting right here. Cisco's guidance says suppliers can set a public absolute target, or an intensity target that produces an absolute reduction over the target period. So the real test is an absolute reduction in outcome, not necessarily an absolute target in form. Cisco encourages suppliers to align with an approved science-based methodology, but that is an encouragement, not a rule.

And the target isn't set-and-forget. You report progress against it each year, backed by a verified inventory, so holding a target really means keeping the data behind it current and showing movement over time.

This is clearly working. In its 2025 fiscal year, 88% of Cisco's component, manufacturing and logistics suppliers by spend had a public, absolute reduction target in place, ahead of the 80% goal Cisco had set.

How does Cisco use your emissions data, and why does quality matter?

For its largest supplier-related category, purchased goods and services, Cisco uses a financial-share allocation method. It takes your total corporate Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as reported to CDP, and moves a slice into its own Scope 3 based on its financial share of your business. So if you report 10,000 tCO2e and Cisco accounts for 5% of your revenue, around 500 tCO2e lands in Cisco's footprint.

What matters here is what this asks of you. Cisco isn't asking you to carve out a Cisco-specific number. What it needs from you is a complete footprint that’s publicly disclosed, backed by third-party verification, and tied to a clear reduction target. 

That verification requirement is the quality bar Cisco sets. But there's a second, less obvious reason accuracy matters. Cisco isn’t just looking for a number, it’s looking for year-on-year progress against your target. If your footprint is built on spend data, that progress can be hard to see. Spend-based methods multiply what you spend by an average emissions factor, so if you switch to a lower-carbon option but spend roughly the same, your reported emissions may barely change, even if the real-world reduction is significant.  A footprint built on activity data, your real energy use and materials, captures that progress, which is what turns a target into something you can demonstrably hit year after year. With most of Cisco's supply base already committed to targets, that ability to show real movement is what increasingly separates suppliers.

What is CDP, and how does supplier reporting work?

CDP is a global environmental disclosure platform. Companies use it to report emissions and other environmental data to investors, customers and other stakeholders, and responses are scored. Cisco is one of many large buyers that run a supply chain programme through CDP, asking suppliers to disclose to them via the platform.

For a Cisco supplier, the practical shape is the one described above. You submit a complete Scope 1 and 2 inventory with material Scope 3, made public, third-party verified, and attached to a target, within the June to September window. Cisco has also partnered with CDP to run webinars walking suppliers through the questionnaire, a reasonable sign that suppliers find the process demanding and benefit from support. 

If you want a fuller picture of how CDP supply chain reporting works, we have a dedicated guide on CDP supply chain reporting.

What happens if a Cisco supplier falls short?

Cisco does not treat emissions reporting as optional or cosmetic. The minimum compliance requirements, including the greenhouse gas and CDP obligation, are assessed and scored in supplier scorecards, and those scorecards are evaluated during business reviews. Emissions performance therefore feeds directly into how a supplier is judged.

Beyond that, Cisco maintains a category it calls Red Line issues, which it defines as unacceptable nonconformances requiring urgent resolution. Sustained nonconformance to international standards for responsible business, which Cisco explicitly lists as including environmental protection, sits in that category. Cisco is clear that failing to address Red Line issues in a timely manner may negatively affect a supplier's ability to do business with it.

The message for suppliers is measured but firm. Credible emissions reporting is part of being a supplier in good standing, and it is one of the things Cisco weighs when it decides who to keep working with.

How Seedling can help

Meeting Cisco's requirements comes down to one thing done well: a complete, accurate, verified carbon footprint, with a credible target and a plan to hit it. That is the work we do every day.

Seedling pairs easy-to-use carbon accounting software with one-to-one support from a dedicated carbon adviser, so you are not left interpreting a customer's requirements on your own. For businesses facing Cisco's requirements, we can help you:

• Build a complete footprint. Measure a full-scope, GHG Protocol-aligned footprint across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, ready for public disclosure and verification. We go beyond spend-based data to use activity data, so your reported emissions reflect real operations and show the reductions you actually make.
• Set a credible target and plan. Set a public, absolute reduction target, build a data-backed plan to reach it, and track year-on-year progress, which is exactly what Cisco asks for.
• Support verification. Cisco requires your reported emissions to be third-party verified. We structure your inventory for independent review and support you through the process, including through ISO 14064.
• Get your data disclosure-ready. Prepare the footprint and target you need for CDP disclosure, in the format the process requires.

We have done this kind of work for businesses reporting to other major customers, including helping Janea Systems report their carbon data to Microsoft. The principle carries across to Cisco: a solid inventory, an accurate footprint the customer can rely on, and the documentation to back it up.

If Cisco is a customer, or you are bidding to become one, and you would like to talk it through, you can book a demo or get in touch with the team.

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