VMware goes green: Industry-leading sustainability efforts

In recent years, a higher priority has been placed on sustainability in enterprises across the board. However, nowhere is this more true than in the technology industry.

Service providers across the tech sector have been working to reduce their utility consumption as well as their carbon footprint. A leader here is VMware, which recently participated in an experimental water conservation campaign. This isn’t VMware’s first venture into sustainability, too – the company has also launched other initiatives in an effort to be more green.

Water conservation at the office and at home

According to GreenBiz, VMware was recently part of a challenge where employees were asked to take the water conservation efforts they had been practicing at the office into their own homes. The company could save as much as 13 million gallons of water this year at its own facilities, made possible through a host of green efforts and upgrades. For example, VMware was able to considerably reduce its water consumption – slashing it by over 50 percent – after updating its landscaping system at its Palo Alto headquarters with drought-tolerant components.

“When California mandated stricter conservation measures last spring, VMware’s sustainability team realized many employees were struggling to figure out which water-saving measures might have the biggest impact at their individual homes,” GreenBiz noted.

VMware encouraged reduced water consumption, not only in its offices, but at its employees’ California homes as well.

Through the online gamification program WaterGenius, VMware and its employees, alongside a small group of eBay employees, are working toward a goal of saving at least a million gallons of water. Through reducing water consumption, updating dishwashers, shower heads and other household components, the 440 participants – most of whom were with VMware – worked to lower their environmental impact.

While the challenge runs through mid-December, VMware was already well on its way to meeting its goal by the fall. As of late October, the VMware team had saved over 660,000 gallons of water, two-thirds of their proposed goal.

The company also has other sustainability efforts in place, including composting, a zero-trash policy at its cafe, office designs that take advantage of daylight to reduce electricity consumption and encouraging employees to use public transportation.