How Cisco Harnesses Circular Design for Sustainable Products

Technology firm Cisco has successfully integrated circular design principles into 100% of its new products and packaging, meeting a sustainability goal for the 2025 fiscal year.

This achievement in circularity – a model of production and consumption focused on eliminating waste by keeping materials in use – has been recognised with a 2025 Reuters Global Sustainability Award for Circularity.

The initiative has been a core focus for Cisco over the past six years and required extensive internal education, with more than 7,000 employees completing circular design training programmes.

Mary de Wysocki, Cisco's Chief Sustainability Officer, announced the milestone: "This moment represents years of partnership, creativity, and persistence across our teams."

Mary explained that the focus on circularity extends beyond waste management: "By designing with circularity in mind, we are not only reducing waste; we are extending product life, improving efficiency and security, and creating meaningful progress for our customers and communities."

Governance and design evaluation

A key element in the implementation was a web-based Circular Design Evaluation Tool.

This internal system now assesses every new product and its packaging against Cisco's 25 Circular Design Principles. For a product to be approved for release, it must achieve a minimum score of 75% in this evaluation.

To ensure accountability and alignment across its different divisions, Cisco also established a governance structure composed of steering oversight and audit committees to maintain the programme's integrity and direction.

This structured approach could provide a model for other manufacturing and technology firms looking to implement similar large-scale sustainability initiatives.

Material and manufacturing cost savings

The practical results of the circular design approach are evident in specific product modifications. For the Webex Room Bar, for instance, Cisco eliminated foam packaging and now uses 55% recycled plastic.

This change saves more than 14,515kg (32,000 pounds) of material annually. More substantial financial and environmental savings were generated from changes to the Catalyst 9000 product line.

According to Cisco, the removal of oil-based paint from these products resulted in US$9m in cost reductions between its 2020 and 2025 fiscal years.

Cisco also reports that eliminating the paint reduced approximately 318 metric tonnes of volatile organic compounds and about 3,400 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions over the same period.

Data infrastructure and future applications

To support its reporting and analysis, Cisco created a Sustainability Data Foundation.

This platform consolidates and governs sustainability data, which includes metrics related to the implementation of its circular design principles. It also enables the analysis of product carbon footprints and the assessment of efficiency gains.

Cisco's progress is shared publicly through its Purpose Reporting Hub and annual Purpose Report.

As digital infrastructure expands to support technologies like AI, circular design principles could offer methods for optimising the use of critical raw materials.

Mary emphasises the commercial logic behind the strategy, noting that "circular design makes good business sense and helps us deliver even greater value to our customers, partners, and suppliers". 

Despite reaching its 100% integration target, Cisco has indicated its work in this area is an ongoing commitment.

Mary sees the milestone as "just the beginning" and plans to evolve the Circular Design Principles based on experience and customer feedback.

Cisco continues to host teardown events where engineers, marketers and supply chain partners collaborate to find new opportunities for sustainable innovation. This framework addresses hardware design, packaging materials, sourcing decisions and repairability considerations across Cisco's product portfolio.