Communing with the Dark Side

It is conventional wisdom that our customers and employees want us to be socially and environmental responsible. And it is overwhelmingly, generally, statistically true - we have the data to prove it. But universally, consistently, always true? Of every individual? Not so much…

At the end of last year, we added a new question to our standard customer survey: "What is the most important action EMC could take to improve its environmental performance?" It should be noted that this questionnaire does not go to our customers' sustainability folks, EHS staff, or executive team - it goes to the people who purchase and use our products & services. In a very far-reaching survey, there is only one other question about the importance of environmental or social performance (about which more another time).

We deliberately left it open-ended, both in interpretation of the question and in allowed wording of the response. We find a gold mine of information in the responses as we immerse ourselves in them each quarter.

First of all, let me make it absolutely, unambiguously clear that the vast majority of the responses are constructive (if at times a tad cheeky).  Skeptics who wonder whether "Green IT" or "sustainability" are self-delusional corporate fads really need to take a couple of hours to read through what our customers are telling us. In broad strokes, some of the bigger messages include:

• When it comes to the relationship of IT equipment to the environment, power and cooling are king.  35% of the respondents wanted continued development in power and cooling efficiency (and that doesn't even count the ones that said they want to do more with solid state drives, disk spin-down, virtualization and other technologies but didn't explicitly mention the power benefit).
• While our philosophy is to spend our efforts on doing things rather than talking about them, we clearly don't communicate what we're doing well enough. 10% explicitly asked for more information, and there were an uncounted number (mea culpa) that asked for capabilities, products, or business practices that are already well established at EMC. (There were more than a few nice compliments, too, which is reassuring.)
• Our customers care about the entire lifecycle of the product. One out of 10 wanted to make sure we were being responsible in our material choices and handling at end-of-life. (If you're one of them, please see EMC's Sustainability Report.) Packaging and documentation, business practices, employee behavior - all were fair game for judgment.
• I found particularly interesting (and also reassuring) that greenhouse gas reductions - whether in product, operations, or overall - are being mentioned slightly more quarter over quarter. Remember, this isn't the environmental crowd we're necessarily talking to.

Alas, however, peppered throughout the results are a few responses that can only be described as "snarky". I thought I'd share a few with you, along with occasional snippy things I wish I could say if I were 1) inclined to spend my time on them, and 2) feeling a bit snarky myself. Some of them will make you laugh - they did me. Laugh, sigh, maybe cry a bit. But I also try to remember that these comments equally reflect real attitudes and feelings, and sometimes reveal a truth - whether it's a failing to educate, poor communication, or an overly human tendency to avoid challenging what we want to believe in.

 So here a baker's dozen of them. Feel free to propose some good responses.

1. "Tell Gore to stuff it" and ""Ignore it - climate change propaganda is ridiculous and is being exposed on a daily basis to be junk science". (Hmm… back to the conundrum of whether to point out that sustainability is about much more than climate change, or to try to educate about why we should worry about climate change. See Speaking of Climate Change. Best not to respond, methinks.)

2. "I hate green and do not care about the environment". (OK, then. Hope you don't have kids!)

3. "Drop the whole thing….this farce is out of favor with both of us. (See #2.)

4. "Stop kowtowing to morons who believe the environment is worth protecting more than profits." (I hope you're in a business that doesn’t need water, food, raw materials, or clean air in a few decades!)

5. "It can't. Green IT is an oxymoron." (You know, you have a point, especially depending on what's running on it. Furthermore, IT is still relying on a lot of raw material and a great deal of energy. But can we also talk about how we CAN make the economy green and the importance of the role that IT has to play?)

6.  "Stop selling product".  (I think I'll take this one as endorsement of cloud computing, which focuses on the service provided instead of the deployment of the product.)

7. "Ecological elements in an offer today are 90% unreal marketing." (I hope you're not talking about EMC. If you are, please tell us what you thought was unreal so we can fix it.)

8. "That's for YOU to figure out. I'm paid to figure out how MY company can improve its environmental performance." (And you're going to do so without understanding that you're in your customers' supply chain? Or that your biggest impact may be what your customers do with what they purchase from you? Good luck with that!)

9. "Oh, look, EMC cares about the environment; they ask about it on their customer satisfaction survey!" (OK, I admit to laughing at this one. Please sir, tell me how to ask in such a way that you'll realize we want to hear what you have to say. No really - we want to know!)

10. "I am not worried about the environment.  Global warming is a myth and therefore irrelevant. We should use as much coal and nuclear power as possible." (Why so angry? What are you suppressing? And please see #1).

11. "Pay it no consideration.  Only people who care are the Greens, and they use Apple equipment exclusively anyway.  The world is not going to end if technology keeps advancing." (And if consumption keeps advancing? And by 'world', are you including our species?  Impressive brand association for Apple, though!)

12. "What a non-sequitur.  Should you be using biodiesel-powered SAN arrays?  Harddrives made from treebark?  Backup software that periodically makes donations to Greenpeace in our name? (Just out of curiosity, whose problem do you think the environment is, anyway?)

13. "Make my servers run on some type of mythical power source that has zero cost and no effect on the environment! Wait, no one really gives a damm [sic] about that - all we want is to use less power and cost less so we can lie to ourselves, pat each other on the back; pretend like we're somehow 'caring for the environment' and call it 'going green'... and Smokey the Bear is gonna come waltzing out my butt.... freaking ridiculously stupid question for self-delusional idiots... ...it's okay; it's my problem... I'll deal with it.." (I'm speechless. Laughing, but speechless.)

You know, I'm in a quandry about whether I should even post these. After all, more than 97% of the comments were constructive and important. But I really don't want to be one of those "self-delusional idiots" who thinks we're all on the same page, or that there are only 2 pages, or that it's gonna be that easy…

Comments

[Kathrin Winkler]

Nicely said, Alex!

[Alex]

hear hear- I enjoyed reading the post and responses. There's little doubt that the standard way of thinking still prevails for the corporation: to maximize shareholder profit. Today that may mean making money and growing margins at the expense of the environment (and in some cases the people manufacturing these products in the factory, or living nearby). There are uncounted for externalities with this approach that will come home to roost if more companies aren't forward thinking about their approach.
The urgency may not exist today, but there will be a time, if we continue on this course, when the only way to maximize profit will be to think more broadly about use of resources (people and earth). Companies planning ahead and investing in this inevitable reality will be best positioned to achieve the corporate goal.

[Kathrin Winkler]

With regard to thinking about the future versus the future of the earth, I guess I believe that the true "systems thinker", who sees the connections and interdependencies, can't think of one without the other. Those who do, are doomed to get it wrong (she said, while thinking about the current state of politics).

As for it being thankless, I admit that I do wonder at times. But I always come down on the side of believing that by chipping away, and changing norms, we will see values start to change with hope of achieving some tipping point. Or perhaps some seemingly unrelated event (another global financial debacle, perhaps?) will drive radical rethinking about the definitions of "wealth" and "well-being", and force us to think longer term, and that all the groundwork that has been laid by what my nephew calls the "sustainascenti" will enable the kind of changes that we hope for.

I do agree that sometime bad things happen in the name of sustainability (a "sustainability consulting firm" sent me a big, single-sided, multi-color brochure in a plastic envelope the other day), but good things are happening, too. Think about all the companies that won't get started because they fundamentally depend on natural resource destruction. Or the fact that we can simply call someone on it when we see them doing something irresponsible. Or my town transfer station which takes recycling for free but waste is pay-by-the-bag. I fundamentally believe that corporations have a huge power to make change, given their intellectual, financial, and geographic diversity, and that we have to try.

[Erin Whit]

Just a note: the last poster "Wood Wade" asked "But deep inside Tucci's mind, do you really think he's thinking about the future of our earth?". In your response you state "And yes, I do think Joe Tucci is thinking about the future - he wouldn't be doing his duty to our shareholders if he weren't.". Thinking about "the future" and thinking about "the future of our earth" are entirely two separate things. Which brings me to my point. I work on so called "sustainability", I'm an experienced engineer and am trying (trying ever so hard) as part of a (very small) team to help guide my organization towards using the earth's resources in a more sustainable way. What a thankless undertaking it is proving to be though! Augh! I'm coming to the conclusion that genuine commitment to sustainability and in particular to, environmental sustainability, is not possible in a public company. There would be a glimmer of hope if the CEO was a true (and I mean true) and steadfast advocate BUT still there are those pesky shareholders defended by the board of directors. I think that in many cases, perhaps the majority, companies are just talking, redefining old - cost saving initiatives - as "green". The actual objective must always be growing the company and maximizing profit for the shareholders, transient though they are in this day-trader age. Many companies are literally just trying to survive so when there are no more 1-year-or-less ROI green initiatives to deploy ... when it starts costing real money to be green then that's when the wheels fall off the sustainability cart.

P.S.: do you ever have the tingling suspicion that more trees have been felled and more GHG emissions spewed in pursuit of sustainability? All those IPCC and company sustainability reports, new carbon management software companies, consultants, and all those folks flying in to UNFCCC and green conferences? I know, I know, we should all be using Cisco's Webex ... oops I mean EMC's!

[Kathrin Winkler]

Well, I certainly won't argue that the primary driver for energy efficiency in IT is financial - whether it's reducing electricity costs, avoiding building a new data center, or increasing the capacity of the existing data center. That said, it's quite clear from the comments regarding materials, recycling, and the like that many of them do indeed care about the environment.

But sustainability isn't necessarily "noble"; it's about thinking in the long term and understanding the interdependence between economic, environmental, and social well-being.

I didn't hear any customer or employee claim that we should turn back the clock, either, or that we shouldn't have developed technology. Or that technology isn't critical to moving forward. And yes, new sources of energy are absolutely necessary.

But so is changing our mindset. Because it's not just climate change - we're running out of natural resources of all types, and with a population four times what it was a century ago, we're going to have to rethink how we live if we want fresh water, fish from the oceans, farmed food, and things built from material extracted from the earth.

And yes, I do think Joe Tucci is thinking about the future - he wouldn't be doing his duty to our shareholders if he weren't.

[Wood Wade]

Well, EMC customers are concerned about power consumption because it costs them money, not because of the whole "green" thing. Believe me, if they can save a few pennies by consuming more energy, they will by all means do it. And of course, EMC will be talking no green things no more, red probably instead.

So, green is not about anything noble, it's all about saving money, or at least claiming that it can or will or could or would save you money. Unfortunately, I personally believe, that the advance of technology will always outpace attempts to hold it back. In other words, even the whole industrialization thing killed millions of people and doomed our precious earth, it eventually benefitted billions of people, whom are ironically the mainstream green guardians. Imagine, if all the "green" people were in England back then and refused to exploit fossil fuel and grew only "organic" food; would we have had the science and technology progress that we had in the last century? Actually most people (or their ancestors) would have died a long time ago, from famine, poor health, etc. How funny, a butcher's daughter is crying for bulls and cows after eating beef and drinking milk for 18 years.

Regarding the "hope you don't have kids" theme, all I wanna say is, green ain't gonna save anybody from doomsday. If we can't have new source of energy, it's gonna come sooner or later, no matter how hard you try. It's just like you and I are all gonna die, no matter how much money we pay our doctors. So, the real issue is, how soon can our scientists save us from the armageddon? I don't know and I don't care, because it's destiny, green's not gonna help sister.

So let's go back to the original point. It's all about saving money and cutting cost. If you insist that's green, well I agree that's important. But deep inside Tucci's mind, do you really think he's thinking about the future of our earth? :)

[Erin Zhou]

Well it's totally different than what I remembered from 3 years ago when I left China. There is a big low-carbon campaign going on now. You can see it everywhere - from subway ads, on TV, in new building design, in the use of hybrid buses and alternative energy. See a short article below. China is catching up, and probably will lead the pack someday. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90780/91342/7056412.html, and http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90780/91344/6979443.html

[Kathrin Winkler]

Thanks, Erin! Please share more about the kinds of changes you've seen in China - I think lots of people would be interested!

[Erin Zhou]

Some of these are really funny yet sad... reminds me of the "Case Against CSR" article. Sometimes people/companies are short-sighted and focusing only on their near term benefit. Growing up in China I see people's behavioral changes as we started to realize the harm we've done to the environment. Sky is no longer blue for us. We have learned our lessons. I just hope it's not too late to realize how important this is. It's time for technology to do some good to the environment and the society, and it's us who're steering the wheels. This is the only way for companies to be sustainable, or, simply to survive.

Looking forward to your new blog. :)

[Kathrin Winkler]

Oh - I agree that the skeptics are thought-provoking. Hence my publishing of them.

The 97 percent constructive were absolutely focused on the things I listed above: power & cooling, responsible handling of waste, less packaging and/or more recycled and recyclable packing materials, and more information about what we are doing in all of these spaces!

Thanks for the suggestions - perhaps I'll list a few of the positive ones in a coming post.

[Ray Angelone]

Skeptics are good - they force you to refine and backup your arguments. But then you'll always get a few that will insist that the world is flat and no amount of evidence and arguing can change their mind. So let them rage on. In the meantime, I'd like to see the top 10 constructive topics. Because for the vast majority that do get it once its explained, there will be new non-zero sum opportunities.