When the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement approximately one year ago, VMware Inc. Chief Executive Office Pat Gelsinger issued a message to his employees that reiterated his company’s commitment to sustainability. That commitment includes achieving carbon neutral emissions for its operations by 2020 and driving the use of 100-percent renewable energy.

The company’s interest in sustainability is more than a passing fad. The sustainability function has been placed in the office of the chief technology officer, and VMware’s virtualization solutions have helped customers worldwide avoid 603 million megawatt hours of power consumption, according to Gelsinger.

“For some companies, sustainability is about innovating around making products from plastic pollution in the ocean,” said Nicola Acutt (pictured), vice president of sustainability strategy, Office of the CTO, at VMware. “For us, we’re asking the question of what the future of energy will look like for our customers and for our industry.”

Acutt spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Radio 2018 event in San Francisco. They discussed VMware’s pursuit of sustainable technology solutions and the importance of culture change in achieving success. (* Disclosure below.)

Hackathon generates diverse ideas

At Radio 2018, engineers participated in a “Borathon,” VMware’s version of a hackathon where participants grappled with this year’s theme of finding sustainable technology solutions. The entrants came up with a wide range of diverse concepts, ranging from using the blockchain for microgrids (localized energy grids that can operate autonomously) to monitoring the energy usage of VMware’s service offerings in real time.

“How do we think about sustainability of energy as a metric of success just like we consider performance, quality and security?” Acutt asked. “I’m excited about that because it’s ultimately about culture and thinking about hard problems, and that’s what innovation is about.”

VMware recently held a gathering of company founders and alumni. The group was polled to answer a simple question of what two topics were keeping them awake at night. One was security, and the other was energy, according to Acutt.

“Sustainability is a lot about culture change,” Acutt said. “Most importantly, it’s about what we do and the impact of our product.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Radio 2018. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Radio 2018. Neither VMware Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE