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Dr Archana Verma
Harish Krishnan, MD, Cisco Systems India & SAARC and Co-Founder Public Affairs Forum of India, speaks about the sustainability and CSR activities of India in this interaction
What is the CSR strategy
of Cisco?
Cisco envisions an
inclusive future where technology gives everyone the tools to thrive. Our
people, solutions, and investments are making this a reality. We enable the
same through strategic programs and partnerships in Education, Critical Human
Needs and Economic Empowerment.
Out of the CSR activities
list, what activities has Cisco engaged in the most in recent times?
The India CSR Program
invests in grants and program in Education, Critical Human Needs and Economic
Empowerment. Every investment is focused on solving a problem and has a digital
product, tool, service or platform as an enabler. All of our investments are
aligned to Schedule VII of the Companies Act. Under Education, we prioritise
enabling access, engagement and learning outcomes for children up to grade 10.
For Economic Empowerment, it is skilling, livelihood generation and
entrepreneurship. Under Critical Human Needs, our investments are in hunger and
nutrition, healthcare, disaster relief and response.
Does Cisco implement the
ideology of social responsibility in its day to day work culture?
Doing good and driving
impact has always been a part of our culture and woven into everything that we
do. In 2019, Cisco built upon a solid foundation and started defining culture
using a new framework that we call “Conscious Culture.” It has three
components: • Environment: An inclusive, diverse environment that positively
impacts people, society, and the planet. • Characteristics: The typical traits
of our culture, such as our unique beliefs, behaviors, and Principles. •
Experience: The everyday interactions people have with their leaders and
colleagues. From volunteering to help build homes, to mentoring students from
under-served communities, doing good is part of being at Cisco. In 2019, 51% of
Cisco employees donated or volunteered to support their community.
What is Cisco's
contribution towards sustainable living?
Globally, Cisco has set
environmental goals since 2006, and continues to set goals aligned with our
most material issues. We use life-cycle assessments (LCAs) to estimate the GHG
emissions associated with the different lifecycle stages of our products and to
help prioritise the best ways to reduce these emissions.
We have also set several targets for ourselves to reduce our impact on the environment. 80% of Cisco's component, manufacturing, and logistics suppliers by spend will have a public, absolute GHG emissions reduction target by FY25, and 70% will achieve a zero-waste diversion rate at one or more sites by then. And with FY19 as the base year, we aim to reduce Cisco's supply chain-related Scope 3 GHG emissions by 30% absolute by FY30, decrease the use of virgin plastics by 20%, and reduce all foam used in product packaging by 75% measured by weight, by FY25.
To further embed
environmental practices into day to day life, employees have access to various
groups and learning platforms such as the Cisco Green Team Network (GTN) a
global employee-led team with 11 local chapters and hundreds of members. These
champions have been instrumental in eliminating paper cups from select offices,
established a community garden at the Bangalore site, championed best practices
for recycling and e-waste disposal and hosting workshops to educate and learn
about sustainable practices for the household, such as wet waste disposal,
lesser consumption of plastic in households and more.
Can you through some
light on how Cisco helped digitise TAPF kitchens?
Aligned to our goal of leveraging
technology to help solve complex problems for our communities, Cisco digitised
seven Akshaya Patra kitchens and two offices in India. The exercise was undertaken
to help Akshaya Patra realise significant gains in productivity, scalability,
and cost-efficiency and accelerate Akshaya Patra’s goal to reach 5 million children
by 2020. As part of this agreement, Cisco has deployed an enterprise-grade
network and collaboration suite connecting kitchens and Akshaya Patra offices
by enabling end-to-end IT and process digitisation. The upgraded Akshaya Patra network connects
their offices in Bangalore, Gurgaon, and field kitchens across seven locations
on a single network which enables them to efficiently track their kitchen
production, distribution, supply chain and logistics. In the immediate
aftermath of the implementation, the following were observed:
·
50%
reduction in time spent on collection and entries of school wise attendance and
meals consumed data
·
Led to a
web-based applications workflow for billing, resulting in up to 53% reduction
projected for billing cycle time
·
Up to
50% improvement in asset life cycle and subsequent reduction in IT asset
investments
How has Akshaya Patra
Foundation along with Cisco tackled hunger during the pandemic due to the loss
of income and jobs?
In the aftermath of a
disaster, Cisco extended support through immediate relief and response. During
the pandemic, as an immediate response to the lockdown, wherein a significant
number of individuals across the country were stranded with no access to an
income and food, Cisco partnered with Akshaya Patra to provide 6.6 lakh meals
to communities across three states. More recently, with the closure of
Government run schools, loss of jobs for parents and the lack of access to
mid-day meals, Cisco has also worked with Akshaya Patra to provide happiness
boxes with essentials, groceries and supplies to 35,000 children.
How can corporate India
make a difference to India’s ‘Hunger Index’ ranking? How does Akshaya Patra’s
mission contribute towards it?
Akshaya Patra runs the
world’s largest mid-day meal program and has demonstrated the impact of the
access of one nutritious meal on a child’s development through various studies
and research. They have also managed to scale the program meaningfully while
maintaining consistency and high quality. If every corporate with a CSR mandate
and an employee giving program were to make a commitment to alleviating hunger
in some form, more so in the aftermath of this pandemic, India could see an
improved ranking on the World Hunger Index.
Outside of monetary contributions, if corporate India used its expertise in technology, human resources, supply chain and/or organisation development to bring in efficiency and further optimise the cost of providing one mid-day meal, Akshaya Patra can subsequently reach out to far more children. Access to cooked nutritious food to the most vulnerable communities is one of the most effective ways to ensure that wide-spread hunger can be curbed. This reduces the burden on families to invest in all the components, right from fuel to supplies to groceries needed to generate one cooked meal. By providing a child one nutritious meal, Akshaya Patra is reducing this burden on the families, while ensuring that chronic under-nutrition, demonstrated by low height and weight for a child’s age called out by the Hunger Index is also addressed.
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