Business has an impact on the world. For most of history, this impact was not something to be proud of. Now, companies are recognizing the benefits of planning for the future, both in terms of business and for community and ecological sustainability.

“It’s larger than the sum of the parts, and about how we leave a legacy and impact as a business,” said Nicola Acutt, vice president of sustainability strategy, office of the chief technology officer, at VMware Inc.

Acutt spoke to Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile live-streaming studio, on the floor of the Women Transforming Technology conference in Palo Alto, CA. (*Disclosure below.)

Their discussion focused on sustainability and the benefits of “design thinking.”

A strategy of collective impact

The conversation opened as Acutt mentioned that VMware has been promoting sustainability for many years. Now, the company is pulling that social and environmental work together, under a strategy of collective impact.

VMware’s mission is about creating not just innovative software, but also tools to help people across the world. It considered not only its impact in the data center, but also how it could enable technology for everyone, from a rural farmer in India to just down the street.

The impetus for this sustainability push was the idea of a net positive, the creation of a legacy. To help quantify this, Acutt stated that VMware and its customers saved quite a bit of energy over the past decade through efficient data centers — enough to power 43 million homes for a year.

Acutt’s role in this effort was to enable “design thinking,” a practical way to consider problems. Design thinking rests on four pillars: empathy, the problem itself, lots of testing and impact. By thinking in terms of these four pillars, Acutt and VMware hope to improve their legacy to the world.

“It’s constantly asking the questions, asking why,” she added.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Women Transforming Technology 2017 event. (*Disclosure: TheCUBE is a media partner at the conference. Neither VMware Inc. nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE