Cisco Live is one of the biggest events in the tech industry, bringing together IT leaders, vendors, and partners to showcase the latest innovations.
This year, AI took centre stage, with Cisco betting big on AI-ready infrastructure. But alongside the excitement, sustainability was also a key talking point—how do we ensure AI and new technologies actually reduce carbon emissions, rather than just making systems more “efficient” while overall energy consumption keeps rising?
We sat down with Anthony Levy, CEO & Founder of Circularity First, to get his thoughts on the biggest themes from the event, the challenges AI presents, and what the industry needs to do next.
AL: Cisco, like the rest of the tech industry, is betting big on AI. Their view is that the real winners in the AI gold rush will be those providing the infrastructure—the “shovels and buckets”—to enable AI at scale. This makes sense, as AI workloads demand huge amounts of computing power, networking, and data centre capacity, which in turn increases energy use.
But with that comes responsibility. How do we ensure AI-ready infrastructure doesn’t just add to the energy burden? That’s the conversation we need to be having.
AL: My first impression? More equals more. Every time I attend an event like this, there are more vendors, more solutions, and more ways to consume and deploy technology.
Cisco’s biggest partners were there, many of whom took the stage alongside Cisco’s leadership to showcase what AI and new technologies can do. There was also a heavy focus on security—Cisco was bullish about having closed the gap in the security space, positioning itself as a leader in infrastructure security.
Wi-Fi 7 was another major theme, not just for its speed and efficiency but for how it enables smarter spaces—where infrastructure can respond intelligently to how a space is used.
AL: For me, the Sustainability Zone was the most interesting part. Cisco is clearly responding to customer demand for a stronger sustainability strategy, and they’re focusing on two key areas:
But while energy efficiency is important, the industry’s main focus still seems to be on selling new infrastructure. And that’s where things get tricky.
AL: The underlying message across the industry is still: Buy new infrastructure to get better energy efficiency.
While that makes sense in some cases, it doesn’t always add up when you take a full Scope 3 view. Sometimes, replacing older technology with “more efficient” new tech actually increases overall carbon emissions, because of the embodied carbon in manufacturing, transport, and disposal.
The real question we need to be asking is: How do we ensure we’re actually reducing net carbon emissions, not just becoming more energy-efficient while increasing overall footprint?
That’s where Circular IT models like Cisco Refresh come in—but in my view, these programmes are still too subtly promoted when they should be front and centre.
AL: One of our customers, Logicalis, showcased their customer journey to sustainable IT. They’re providing real-world examples of how businesses have successfully reduced carbon emissions—not just in theory, but through practical implementation.
Another interesting conversation was with Reconext, an ITAD (IT Asset Disposition) company that helps ensure used technology is redeployed instead of scrapped. We need more of this—far too often, the focus has been on recycling, when reuse and redeployment should always come first.
For example, we recently completed an IT redeployment project to Ukraine, helping to rebuild the education infrastructure. That’s a far better outcome than breaking down perfectly good equipment just to extract raw materials.
AL: AI dominated the conversation, but there was a quiet recognition that we can’t keep pumping out new products without considering their impact—both in terms of energy use and embodied carbon.
Many of the partners I spoke to were eager to understand where sustainability fits into their proposition and, crucially, how it can generate business value. That’s the conversation we need to keep driving—because sustainable IT isn’t just about compliance, it’s about making better business decisions that benefit both the planet and the bottom line.
