Our Waste Doesn't Go To Waste

From construction projects to daily meals in our cafeterias, we’re committed to making sure the waste we create around the world is reused, recycled or composted. Our efforts are paying off. In 2015, we had a waste diversion rate of over 90% in our offices with over 2,000 people, and, at our Palo Alto headquarters, we diverted 94% of waste from landfill.

At our headquarters, we have made significant investments to meet the needs of our growing employee population, while continuing to be good environmental stewards. During our campus expansion in 2013-2015, we diverted approximately 86% of onsite-generated construction waste from landfill. We even used the raw material from building demolition to construct our parking garage. In 2015, we successfully diverted 97% of our excess office furniture and equipment, thereby repurposing or recycling 44.7 tons. Our goal is to achieve over 90% waste diversion globally and zero e-waste from our operations.

As a software company, we rigorously manage our IT assets, which include the responsibility of properly disposing of our e-waste. Our greatest material waste stream is electronic equipment. This includes servers, network equipment and other IT hardware used in our data centers as well as computers, devices and peripherals provided to employees to conduct their daily work.

In 2015, we disposed of or donated 13,682 pieces of corporate e-waste through our Asset Disposal program. This global program ensures that each asset is put to its highest and best use. Going forward, in order to achieve our zero e-waste goals, we plan to expand our data collection metrics and further engage our operations groups and employees.

Read more about our impact in the VMware Global Impact Report 2015