VMware's ESG strategies help Bay Area non-profits

Green Standards and VMware have worked together since 2015 to decommission furniture and equipment from the cloud computing leader’s corporate offices in California. The main objective of the partnership is to achieve the greatest possible community impact through coordinated in-kind donation.

Challenge

VMware’s corporate real estate and sustainability teams recognized that liquidating multiple floors of used office furniture would result in an unknown amount of furniture waste. As a leader in ESG, VMware understood that coordinating a large-scale donation initiative on its own could come with sizable vendor and storage costs, unique project risks, and potential legal liability. The potential for so much waste and the lack of transparency typical of liquidation services urged them to consider a better approach.

VMware’s stakeholders determined that the company’s excess furniture and equipment provided a unique opportunity to further its industry-leading corporate responsibility goals, as well as to engage and assist non-profit organizations serving in its communities.

Solution

Since 2015, Green Standards has provided VMware with a streamlined approach to donating its excess office assets to community organizations local to its headquarters and regional offices.

Green Standards takes responsibility for the entire process; from onboarding and managing commercial movers, to engaging eligible local non-profits, coordinating and documenting asset delivery, and providing environmental and community impact reporting.

Result

VMware has deployed Green Standards’ services throughout the Bay Area with notable projects in Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara.

Overall, these projects have achieved a landfill diversion rate of 99.7 per cent. Of the 489 tons of office equipment diverted from landfill, about 54 per cent was recycled, and 22 per cent was donated to more than 35 non-profit organizations.

Asset Distribution