Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Climate Leadership Awards awarded to Cisco the EPA 2013 Supply Chain Leadership Award for innovation, commitment, leadership, and technical achievements in managing and reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions throughout our supply chain.

The award is among several given by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Center for Corporate Climate Leadership, the Association of Climate Change Officers, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and The Climate Registry.

Winners of the Supply Chain Leadership Award are at the leading edge of managing GHGs in their organizational supply chains.

Cisco set and recently met aggressive goals for its own corporate GHG emissions, and we expect our suppliers to meet the same high environmental standards we apply to our own operations. We work closely with them to manage sustainability issues and improve performance at every stage of the life cycle of our products.

The best practices we follow when working with our suppliers include:

• Setting Expectations.We expect our suppliers and partners to have a robust system in place to measure and report GHGs, set meaningful goals, and report on progress. Since 2010, we have asked all preferred suppliers to report to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and make their responses public.

• Education and Collaboration.We work with suppliers to clarify expectations and help them mature their GHG programs. We encourage collaboration among suppliers and sharing of best practices on topics such as GHG emission allocation techniques.

• Tracking Progress.We track our suppliers' performance on regular intervals, aligning this task with our standard business processes for managing our suppliers so tracking is embedded into everyday operations.

• Supplier Scorecard.Included within suppliers' business performance scorecard are key sustainability criteria, which are used to establish "preferred" status and award future business with Cisco. These sustainability criteria include reporting to CDP, providing Cisco's share of emissions, and enacting their own GHG reduction goals. We identify suppliers who do not meet expectations and work with them to help improve performance.

Sustainability criteria in Cisco's supplier scorecards help us better monitor supplier performance and to collaborate with our supply chain partners to optimize environmental improvements. Watch video.

• Rewarding Performance.Suppliers committed to sustainability are honored every year at Cisco's annual Supplier Appreciation Event, with one exemplary company awarded the "Excellence in Sustainability" award.

• Internal Training.Cisco's supplier management teams are key partners in ensuring that suppliers are meeting or exceeding our expectations. In fiscal year 2012, we launched web-based training for supplier managers to set forth the business case for sustainability and how to engage suppliers.

• Product Design.We work with suppliers as well as product engineers to source components that are more energy efficient and contain less hazardous material content. We also work with suppliers to ensure that power supplies are at least 85 percent efficient, considered a high industry benchmark. And our Design for Distribution requirements reduce the materials and packaging associated with our products, in turn reducing GHG emissions from shipping and optimizing other, more energy efficient, modes of transportation.

Please read more about our commitment to Supply Chain sustainability at csr.cisco.com.