Our products have great potential to help people live and work more sustainably. In addition to the programs we are already implementing, we continue to invest in innovation for a sustainable future.
Cisco works with public and private partners to explore how the carbon-reducing benefits of our networking solutions can be expanded. We also participate in research on the use of technology to assess and coordinate responses to global environmental challenges.
Connected Urban Development (CUD) aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote economic development by changing the way cities deliver services, how residents work, how traffic flow is managed, how public transportation operates, and how buildings are used and managed.
Through the Clinton Global Initiative, we contributed $15 million to the CUD public-private partnership over the five-year period from 2006 to 2010. We worked with cities around the world to demonstrate how ICT and network connectivity can increase efficiencies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in urban environments.
In June 2010, Cisco handed over the leadership and governance of the CUD program to the global non-profit organization The Climate Group. The Climate Group will continue the program with an increasing number of cities, companies, and innovative sustainable technology projects.
Pilot projects are underway in Amsterdam, San Francisco, Seoul, Birmingham (U.K.), Hamburg, Lisbon, and Madrid (see Story Highlight). Cisco has also developed a CUD Solutions Toolkit
that includes lessons learned, best practices, economic and environmental value case models, and CUD project outcomes.
For more on Connected Urban Development, see www.connectedurbandevelopment.org.
Planetary Skin is a public-private partnership that aims to harness the power of ICT and networks to help decision-makers manage resources and risks more effectively and provide a platform for open global collaboration to address challenges such as climate change and energy efficiency.
In March 2009, Cisco, NASA, and The Climate Group partnered to form the Planetary Skin Institute (PSI), a nonprofit organization between leading corporations, government agencies, and research institutions around the world to address global challenges through R&D.
PSI is working with partners to develop decision support tools for resource and risk management that have the potential to increase food, water, and energy security and protect ecosystems such as tropical forests (see Story Highlight).
For more details on the Planetary Skin Institute, see www.planetaryskin.org.