Journey to 2020
Over the past 20 years, we’ve grown from five technologists working out of a small apartment to a global technology leader with more than 24,000 employees and a strong network of strategic partners. Virtualization. Cloud computing. Mobile technology. Our two decades of technology innovation have given rise to a better, more connected world. But we believe we can do even more.
In 2015, we established our VMware 2020 vision, which outlines our ongoing commitment to innovating for good in three key areas: Products, Planet, and People. The following pages reflect our progress as we continue to work toward our vision.
A Message from Our CEO
I believe it is up to all of us in industry to ensure technology benefits everyone. For example, we set the bar high and aim for exponential impact by investing in research and tools to strengthen the operations of nonprofits globally—the organizations we rely on to tackle our most pressing societal problems—so that they can more effectively serve their respective missions. By continuing to challenge ourselves and ask the hard questions, we can move our impact beyond our walls to reach the wider community, industry, and the world. Together, we are—and can continue to be—a force for good.
- Pat Gelsinger, Chief Executive Officer
Read the entire message by downloading the full 2018 Global Impact Report.
A Message from Our CPO
Five years ago we set the VMware bar high, with ambitious and aggressive 2020 Global Impact goals. I’m proud to announce that we’ve reached some of these goals early, made significant progress toward others, and continued to learn, evolve, and innovate the way we approach our impact on our products, our planet, and our people.
- Betsy Sutter, Corporate Senior Vice President and Chief People Officer
Read the entire message by downloading the full 2018 Global Impact Report.
Governance & Policy
Our approach to governance and ethics is rooted in our EPIC2 values. With integrity at the heart, we strive to be bold yet humble, competitive yet fair, and decisive yet respectful. We build and protect trusted relationships with our customers, partners, shareholders, and our people.
We are dedicated to upholding privacy and security, protecting our customers, maintaining compliance in the cloud, and acting and partnering with integrity.
Read the 2019 ESG Performance Summary and GRI Content Index by downloading the full 2018 Global Impact Report.
2020 Global Impact Pillars
Transformative products
We aspire to drive sustainable business practices and to create inno- vative technology that contributes lasting net positive value to our customers and our partner ecosystem.
Learn MoreBy 2020, we will:
Incorporate sustainability into every product release—making it easier for customers to create positive social and environmental impact. Deliver technology that gives customers and partners data to make informed choices about cleaner clouds. Integrate sustainability into our customer experience.
Thriving planet
We aspire to do more than our fair share to be at the forefront of environmental sustainability in our global business practices and operations.
Learn MoreBy 2020, we will:
Commit to a science-based target for our global carbon emissions reduction. Reach carbon neutrality and 100% renewable energy for our global operations. Institute aggressive water conservation in the water-stressed regions of our portfolio. Achieve over 90% waste diversion globally and zero e-waste to landfills from our operations. Procure 50% of our business operations from diverse, sustainable, and socially responsible suppliers.
Empowered people
We aspire to build a diverse and inclusive environment that enriches lives at work, at home, and in the community—inspiring people to give more than they take.
Learn MoreBy 2020, we will:
Increase our representation of women and underrepresented groups to better reflect the communities we live in and serve. Inspire and support the broader community of women and diverse talent in technology. Create a vibrant employee experience that promotes innovation and connects employees across our global community. Bridge work and home with programs that help employees incorporate wellness and sustainability into their lives. Inspire over 85% of our global employees to give back in their communities.
Enabling a Legacy of Responsibility
Data centers account for a full 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Our virtualization technologies make IT infrastructure dramatically more efficient. Because our products help our customers use less hardware more intelligently, they’ve avoided putting 664 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since 2003—the equivalent of the annual power consumption of Spain, Germany, and France.
Innovating to Expand the Sustainability Frontier
We are building a three-pronged approach to drive sustainability product innovation:
1. Streamline our software development processes to optimize our own R&D IT infrastructure
2. Develop new products, features and services that further maximize the energy- and carbon-efficiency of customers’ digital operations
3. Identify opportunities to use our technologies to help enable and accelerate emerging solutions to global sustainability challenges such as renewable energy, smart cities and autonomous driving.
VMware on VMware Innovation
In 2018, VMware corporate IT needed to do a server technology refresh (5-year cycle) in its largest data center. This data center was energy-intensive, with 900 servers, 147 racks and 4,200 virtual machines. Using multiple VMware products to facilitate the migration, it took one year, but with only four hours of downtime. The new data center was much more efficient with 660 servers, 45 racks, and 2,560 VMs. VMware is saving 1.7 million kWh and 410 metric tons of carbon emissions per year.
VMware’s Commitment to Nonprofit Digital Transformation
There are 12 million global nonprofits tackling society’s most pressing problems. Many of these organizations struggle with realizing the benefits of technology due to lack of resources, funding, and capacity. VMware supports strengthening nonprofits’ organizational capacity through multiple efforts.
Learn more here
“Working with VMware we hope to strengthen social change organizations so they can continue to tackle big challenges.”
– LINDSAY GRUBER, President & CEO, Taproot Foundation
Harnessing the power of microgrids
Renewable energy-powered community microgrids revolutionize energy distribution, enabling communities to move away from a centralized distribution model toward independent, energy-resilient, clean-powered local systems.
VMware invests in on-site solar on our Palo Alto campus as part of our commitment to clean, renewable energy.
Learn more here
Investing in the next generation
VMware IT Academy works with a global network of educational institutions to provide students access to high-quality learning certification opportunities and hands-on lab experiences with VMware technologies. We provide a free curriculum and materials, with the goal of helping students jump-start their software careers. In 2018, VMware IT Academy worked with 2,400 institutions in 79 countries and provided 1.3 million free software downloads for educational purposes. And that’s just the beginning—we have aggressive growth plans underway to help reach more people of all ages earn the skills they need for jobs of today and of the future.
Joining Forces to Change the World’s Relationship with Energy
Changing the way we think about, generate, and use power is a goal far bigger than any one organization can achieve on its own. Thankfully, we’re in good company.
This past September, attendees from around the world gathered in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit. At the Summit, VMware and 20 other companies announced the launch of the Step Up Declaration, an alliance dedicated to harnessing the power of the fourth industrial revolution to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions across all economic sectors and ensure a climate turning point by 2020. The alliance’s declaration is bold: “We need to be held, and hold each other, accountable to rise to the greatest challenge the world has ever seen.” And it’s one we’re proud to stand behind.
Learn more here
“It has been great to watch VMware accelerate their global commitments over the past year, and we congratulate them on reaching their commitment to carbon neutrality ahead of schedule.”
— Lance Pierce, President, CDP North America
In November 2018, we announced that we reached carbon neutrality two years ahead of our 2020 goal, achieving CarbonNeutral® Company certification in accordance with the CarbonNeutral® Protocol.
Operations Meets Responsibility
While we can’t tackle climate change alone, we know that our part starts within our walls—literally. We’re committed to green building practices and are currently operating in 15 LEED®-certified buildings, including two with LEED® Platinum certifications—one at our office in Bangalore, India, and one at our data center in Washington state. In 2018, we certified our first facility in China.
VMware increased our global consumption of renewable energy from 77% in 2017 to 94% in 2018, and we are well on our way toward our 100% goal.
In 2018, we achieved a 38% decrease in our emissions intensity over the prior year—alongside 14% revenue growth. Cumulatively, this is a 63% decrease from our base year, surpassing our 10% reduction goal.
*Scope 3 – Other includes the following Scope 3 categories: Fuel & Energy Related Activities, Upstream Transportation & Distribution, Upstream Leased Assets, and Waste Generated in Operations. Details can be found in our CDP Report
The Power of Human Difference
Each VMware employee is a change agent, and by 2020, we’re committed to creating a vibrant employee experience and culture where everyone can thrive.
Over the past five years, our path toward a more diverse and inclusive workplace has evolved from our goal of supporting and increasing representation of women to a more intersectional program for all employees—and we’re still learning and iterating. We take an agile approach to diversity and inclusion, testing research against practical application in order to evolve our programs, tools, and policies in a way that drives change both in our organization and across the technology industry.
Learn more about VMinclusion here
“Stanford University has launched the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, an ambitious research and collaboration initiative that seeks to permanently close the gender divide in the workplace.”
- Shelley Correll, Director, VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab
Fueling a Community of Changemakers
At VMware, we pride ourselves on pushing the edge of innovation. VMware Foundation is no different. From the very beginning, Citizen Philanthropy has been our unique approach to giving. We know that the world’s most pressing challenges are complex and interconnected and must be addressed through a systems-thinking approach. As such, our focus is not on a singular social issue, but on mobilizing all individuals at VMware to be active and engaged in their own communities. Citizen Philanthropy is about learning and growing through service. It’s about the combined impact of our time, talent, and resources to create networks of giving. And it’s about seeing that our individual actions add up to big change.
Good Gigs Projects
In May 2018, the VMware Foundation launched Good Gigs Projects, a program that invites VMware people to apply their pro bono talents to co-create a sustainable solution with a nonprofit of their choice, enabling the technology, processes, and people it needs to thrive.
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VMware’s Commitment to Nonprofit Digital Transformation
Today every organization needs technology to succeed and scale; however, nonprofits face many barriers to progressing on their digital journey, primarily due to constrained resources. At VMware, we are driven to be a force for good. We remain optimistic that technology can help address the most pressing societal issues when integrated with existing processes and in partnership with the people working most closely to the challenges.
Recognizing the diversity and range of needs of global nonprofit organizations, VMware has taken a three-pronged approach to advancing Nonprofits’ Digital Transformation:
1. Investing in sector-wide tools and resources at global scale.
2. Strengthening nonprofit capacity through pro bono Service Learning.
3. Enabling nonprofits to progress in their digital maturity by increasing accessibility to VMware solutions.
How we approach Nonprofit Digital Transformation
Investing in sector-wide tools and resources at global scale.
Developing a practical guide to more effective & sustainable technology pro bono. Leading a multi-company effort to develop a nonprofit digital asesssment roadmap.
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Strengthening nonprofit capacity through pro bono Service Learning
Evolving VMware’s Good Gigs pro bono program to integrate best practices from Transforming Technology Pro Bono research with Taproot.
Learn More
Enabling nonprofits to progress in their digital maturity by increasing accessibility to VMware solutions.
Supporting nonprofits to access targeted VMware solutions at a discounted price.
Learn More