Edna Conway, senior director in Cisco's customer value chain management organization, discusses our sustainable value chain model.
Edna Conway Discusses Sustainable Value Chain Management
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Our approach to our value chain focuses on every stage in the lifecycle of our products. This means managing the whole value chain, including issues such as ethics, product security, environmental impact, and labor relations.
Nearly all (95 percent) of the manufacture, testing, delivery, return, reuse, and recycling of Cisco products is outsourced to partners in Asia, Europe, and North and Central America. The management of our value chain is understandably complex, and the quality of our relationships with suppliers is critical to our success.
We address CSR issues in our value chain through:
- Aligning our work around four key sustainability pillars, and embedding these into routine business practices (see Our Approach)
- Supplier self-assessments, supported by joint audits and Cisco-initiated reviews against our Supplier Code of Conduct (see Audit Findings)
- Open collaboration with industry partners to develop a common approach (see Working with Industry)
Minimizing the environmental impacts of our products is a key focus of our value chain program. See Environment for more information on environmental innovation and standards.
We promote a diverse supplier base through a range of initiatives designed to build business skills and capabilities across the globe (see Supplier Diversity).
- Worked with the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) to map the supply chain for conflict minerals and develop a reliable and transparent process for identifying the chain of custody for these materials
- Completed site audits at all medium- and high-risk first-tier electronics manufacturing supplier facilities
- Developed a Juvenile Labor Policy in collaboration with our suppliers for launch in FY11
- Corrected all outstanding substandard audit findings
- Strong interest from diverse suppliers in Advanced Mentoring program