Building a greener tomorrow: the power of partnerships

Co-authored by Ilham Rahali, Head of Commercial Partnerships at Orange Business, and Pascal Allochon, Partner Sales Leader at Cisco in France.

Cisco and Orange Business have at the heart of their business a drive to power an inclusive future. We create the space for our employees to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives to create a positive impact, not only for customers and partners, but also for wider society and the planet.

Recently, we partnered together to host a Green Day event in the French countryside.

A Common Purpose

With our common goals and joint values around environmental sustainability—Cisco has a goal to reach net zero GHG emissions and Orange Business has an intent to become Net Carbon Zero, both by 2040—it seemed obvious to us to create this event together, with the aim to use the learnings to strategize new ways to support making digital transformation more efficient and sustainable for our customers.

Around 90 account managers, sales specialists and leaders from Orange Business, Cisco and ThousandEyes attended the event, and we are thrilled by the enthusiasm generated by the Green Day.

Our Green Day Intentions

The primary objective of the day was to provide insights and explore opportunities on what Cisco and Orange Business could do together to support environmental sustainability within the technology industry.  The second objective was to develop more intimacy between the sales teams. The Cisco and Orange Business teams work well and closely together, and the Green Day was designed to create much deeper connections to encourage co-innovation on CSR topics and related challenges, which are top of mind for our customers.

We all arrived by electric vehicles, and the day started with a number of seminars on addressing climate change, environmental stewardship, and exploring how Cisco and Orange Business can leverage technology and their combined expertise to help our customers with their social and environmental sustainability goals.  The presentations were delivered by subject matter experts from both companies.

Out in the Field

In the afternoon, we all went to a local farm, specializing in biodynamic agriculture, and got first-hand information from the owner of the farm on the impact of climate change on his crops and harvest, the ways he thought technology could help, as well as guidance on how we as individuals can make conscious sustainable choices when buying produce.

We then spent time helping with the process of organic juice extraction from apples picked from the trees grown in the orchard on the farm. We ended the day planting 30 melliferous trees, as well as a variety of other trees to help in the preservation of the biodiversity of the soil. Indirectly supporting the apple orchard in a way that is respectful of nature.

A Strategic Partnership

Planting trees together not only ensured we played our own small part in the service of the planet and small business farmers but was also symbolic of our strong and growing partnership, as we continue to collaborate and consider next-generation sustainable solutions for our customers.

Our next steps are to develop and execute on a joint plan for building a positive future for our customers, for our planet, and for ourselves.

A Personal Note

We have achieved so much for the partnership between Cisco and Orange Business, and we are deeply aligned and excited to move forward on this environmental sustainability journey together.

Alone we go faster, together we go further!

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