Tell us a bit more about your background, how you came to Dell and your experience at the company.

My interest in sustainability traces back to my first job with the Bureau of Land Management, where I conducted research and helped fight forest fires. It gave me a whole new appreciation of how delicate our natural resources really are.

This experience also inspired me to get my degree in chemistry and biology, which eventually led me to a career in product design and development. This was my starting point at Dell and I found myself immersed in energy efficiency, recycling and conversations with customers, various stakeholders, and even the EPA about environmental performance in IT.

How has Dell’s sustainability program evolved over the years?

Our start as a company was about democratizing technology and making it available to the masses to help enable human potential. Our business was founded on the concept that designs should be upgradable, recyclable and serviceable. In 1993, we helped launch the EPA’s Energy Star program and attended the signing of the memorandum of understanding at the White House with Al Gore. We fully embraced the concept that we could help drive environmental innovation features on IT.

About 15 years ago, we started expanded our focus on how to help customers with the end of life process for their products. We were among the first to develop product take-back programs, have integrated them into every aspect of our business, and now offer takeback in 78 countries and territories around the world.

About 10 years ago, we started to formalize the concept of sustainability, which must be aligned with the business at all times. This led to our 2020 Legacy of Good Plan, which has brought the company together around a shared strategy for the future with customers at the center.

You have received widespread recognition for your 2020 Legacy of Good Plan. Can you tell us how it came to fruition and the progress you’ve made since announcing it?

It began with a focus on two key objectives: thinking longer-term and helping our customers and other key stakeholders achieve their own sustainability goals. The Legacy of Good goals enable our customers and stakeholders to be more informed about our planning and ask specific questions guided by data and transparency. The 2020 Legacy of Good Plan has enhanced our conversation at every level by providing direct opportunities for feedback and collaboration that brings everyone to the table.

At the Fund, we’ve developed a number of programs around sustainably managed resources. What are you hearing from customers and partners on how they’re prioritizing them?

Customers continue to tell us that sustainability is important to them. It shows up in the bid requests we get: we’ve seen an increase in the number and the complexity of the questions asked about sourcing, packaging, materials use, recycling and other sustainability topics.

It’s the same with our partners and they are an important engine of innovation for us. Take packaging as an example. We started with bamboo-based packaging, and subsequently expanded to mushroom-based packaging. A year and a half ago, we further expanded this to making packaging that uses agricultural waste products like wheat straw. We’ve partnered with farmers in China to buy the wheat straw after their harvest and prevented it, in many cases, from being burned and causing unnecessary pollution. By using this fiber, it takes 40 percent less energy and 90 less water to process than its predecessor. It’s a perfect triple bottom line: we source locally, create jobs, help reduce pollution and it costs less. Our customers are looking for us to drive renewables and zero waste, which we will continue to do.

Another example we just announced recently is the integration of post-industrial waste carbon fiber into new products. It’s the latest in our commitment to help make the circular economy a reality.

Let’s talk for a minute about our partnership, which is fast approaching a decade in duration. How does Dell’s work with The Conservation Fund help the company and its customers improve our climate?

It started as a way to educate our customers on what it would take to offset the energy use of their products. Our Chairman and CEO Michael Dell was instrumental in helping us rethink the role that customers could play. From the outset, we wanted to give the customer a choice when purchasing products. Two things happened – the number of Dell employees who started getting really psyched about the ‘Plant a Tree’ increased exponentially. It’s been a great awareness tool. It’s also incentivized a number of internal programs and a number of our employees have rallied around it.

Secondly, a broad range of our customers, from consumers to small businesses to large enterprises recognized the impact of offsetting the carbon footprint of their technology during its use phase. Since 2007, Dell customers have donated more than $2.3 million to the program, helping plant more than 800,000 seedlings across the globe. Recently, we announced a commitment to plant one million trees with our customers by 2020.

The partnership between Dell and The Conservation Fund has helped us get closer to our customers and help them achieve their climate goals. We know we will not achieve our Legacy of Good goals without collaboration. One example is “net positive,” which states that the good that will come from our technology by 2020 will be 10 times greater that what it takes to produce and use it. We can’t achieve this alone and our partners and stakeholders are critical to helping us realize this vision.

We’re looking forward to an active 2016. Stay tuned.