Cisco is committed to respecting human rights throughout our global operations. Our work to operationalize this commitment is grounded in our Global Human Rights Policy and led by a dedicated team of subject-matter experts. We continually work to identify and mitigate potential human rights risks linked to our business, and we regularly engage with stakeholders and their legitimate representatives to inform our strategy.
Cisco’s dedicated Business and Human Rights (BHR) team is responsible for setting Cisco’s human rights strategy to embed respect for human rights throughout our global operations and for working to ensure compliance with human rights-related regulations. The BHR team is led by the Director of Human Rights, staffed with human rights experts, and reports up through the Chief Legal Officer.
The BHR team works cross-functionally with internal partners to implement Cisco’s human rights strategy across relevant functions, including engineering, government affairs, human resources, investor relations, legal, marketing and communications, privacy, procurement, sales, supply chain, and others.
In 2020, Cisco established the Human Rights Advisory Committee, a cross-functional group of senior leaders across Cisco’s business that advises the BHR team on issues related to Cisco’s support of and respect for human rights. The Human Rights Advisory Committee meets to discuss emerging human rights risks and opportunities and Cisco’s work to address them. The BHR team regularly reports to members of Cisco’s Executive Leadership Team on its progress to mitigate potential human rights harms and respect ethical principles in our technology solutions and day-to-day operations. In the event that material human rights risks are identified, management reports these to the Environmental Social, and Public Policy Committee of the Board of Directors.
Cisco’s Global Human Rights Policy was first adopted in 2012 and is updated on an annual basis. The policy publicly states Cisco’s commitment to respect all internationally recognized human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the eight core International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions. We follow the approach laid out in the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, including by developing and communicating our human rights policy, adopting the practice of regularly identifying and working to mitigate human rights risks, and establishing mechanisms for reporting and remediating impacts when they occur. Over time, Cisco has adopted additional policies, frameworks, and guidelines to further implement our commitment to human rights. For example:
To support employees in meeting Cisco’s human rights commitments, we offer tailored trainings and workshops for internal partners in functions that are most likely to encounter human rights risks in their day-to-day jobs. Employees also annually affirm their commitment to respecting human rights as part of our Code of Business Conduct.
For more information about how this work is managed in the supply chain, see Human rights in the supply chain.
Cisco conducts human rights due diligence and human rights impact assessments to identify, prevent, mitigate, and work to address human rights risks. We are continuously working to integrate human rights reviews into existing processes and procedures.
Through our ongoing assessment of risks, we have identified salient human rights issues associated with Cisco’s business to include those related to privacy, freedom of expression, nondiscrimination, health and safety, freely chosen employment, young workers and child labor, ethical sourcing of minerals, pollution prevention and environmental sustainability, and promoting reskilling for the future of work.
Examples of circumstances that could trigger human rights due diligence include:
Our human rights due diligence process draws on both internal and independent external human rights expertise. When we conduct human rights due diligence, we consider a variety of factors, including:
To inform our assessment of potential human rights risks, we continually evolve our approach to incorporate emerging best practices and share our human rights practices with the broader business and human rights community. We regularly engage with external stakeholders and potentially affected groups or their legitimate representatives.
Cisco is an active member of industry initiatives related to addressing human rights in the technology sector such as the Article One Roundtable on Human Rights and AI, the Business for Social Responsibility Human Rights Working Group, the UN B-Tech project, and the UN Global Compact.
Accountability is core to the effectiveness of our human rights approach. We share our Global Human Rights Policy publicly on our website and share information about our efforts to implement our human rights commitments annually in our Purpose Report and through other communication channels such as Cisco’s corporate blog.
Employees, customers, partners, vendors, suppliers, service providers, shareholders, supply chain workers, and any other stakeholder can report actual or potential human rights concerns through Cisco’s complaints procedure called EthicsLine. EthicsLine is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in multiple languages. We have a strict non-retaliation policy, meaning that employees who report business conduct violations in good faith cannot be subject to any adverse employment action, including separation, demotion, suspension, or loss of benefits because of the report.
