An example method is provided and includes receiving, at an ingress switch in a network, a packet from an attached host that is coupled to a destination host, where the packet includes an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address of a destination host, comparing the IPv6 address with a plurality of entries in a longest prefix match (LPM) table, in which each entry includes a value string and a corresponding mask string configured to detect a match for a specific combination of a segment prefix and a switch-id in the IPv6 address, identifying an egress switch from a matching entry in the LPM table, and forwarding the packet to the egress switch. The IPv6 address includes a combination of segment prefix and switch-id associated with the egress switch. The segment prefix corresponds to an identifier of a network segment, and the switch-id corresponds to an identifier of a switch in the network.