VMware reaches the goal of using 100% renewable energy in its operations, a year ahead of their 2020 vision

Yesterday, VMware announced that they have achieved their goal of achieving 100% renewable energy in their operations, a year ahead of their 2020 vision. VMware has always been optimistic about the power of technology to help solve societal problems. One of their key focus areas has been to change their relationship with energy.

In 2016, VMware had announced their goal to achieve carbon neutral emissions and to advance its commitment to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2020. They have been successful in reaching both these goals, much before the scheduled time. In November 2018, VMware achieved Carbon Neutrality across all their business operations.

Now, they have also powered  100 percent of their operations with renewable energy and have joined RE100, a year early. RE100 is a global corporate leadership initiative to commit influential businesses to 100% renewable electricity and accelerate change towards zero carbon energy. RE100 is led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP and works to increase corporate demand for–and delivery of–renewable energy.

As Data centers are responsible for two percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,  VMware’s technologies have helped IT infrastructure become more efficient by fundamentally changing how their customers use power. They have helped their customers avoid putting 540 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is equivalent to powering the population of Spain, Germany and Switzerland for one year.

In a blogpost, the Vice President of Sustainability at VMware, Nicola Acutt, has mentioned that they could achieve RE100 through a combination of strategies, such as:

• Opting into clean power through local utilities
• Locating assets in areas with renewable energy
• For areas not feasible, they purchased renewable energy credits (RECs). This indicates demand to the global market of renewable energy, and enables the development of its  infrastructure.

According to the U.N.’s report, as a society, around 70-85 percent of electricity will have to be shifted to renewable energy sources by 2050, to avoid the worst impacts of climatic change. Acutt states that to achieve this goal, all establishments will have to acquire a system approach to become more efficient. This will help drive the transition to a sustainable economy globally.

The response to this news has been great, people are praising VMware for reaching RE100 ahead of their schedule.

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