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Environmental Strategy
Symantec is committed to minimizing its environmental footprint by conserving the natural resources on which we all depend. We consider compliance with all applicable environmental laws and regulations to be the baseline for our performance, and we continually look for innovative ways to decrease our energy, water, and materials use. Symantec’s environmental strategy features four key components:
- Green IT (including the Green Data Center): Symantec has established practices to minimize energy use and optimize performance in our clients’ and our own data centers and beyond. Our solutions facilitate server virtualization and storage consolidation, among others, to help reduce hardware and energy needs.
- Resource conservation: Symantec aims to conserve energy and materials and minimize waste at each of our locations.
- Responsible software packaging: We integrate the concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle” into packaging design and manufacturing, and deliver the majority of our software products electronically in order to conserve materials and energy.
- Transportation: Symantec works to reduce employee commuting and business travel to reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Read Symantec’s Environmental Policy, which lays out the company’s strategic priorities and oversight of environmental issues.
Listen to a podcast on Symantec’s environmental initiatives, featuring Cecily Joseph, Symantec’s Director of Corporate Responsibility.
Listen to a podcast on practices and policies IT organizations are adopting in order to operate in a more environmentally responsible manner, featuring Vice President of Global Solutions at Symantec, Jose Iglesias.
As we work on current and roll out new environmental initiatives, we are also focusing on engaging employees to let them know how they can contribute to our success. In early 2008 we launched the “It’s the right thing to do” awareness campaign, featuring a quarterly newsletter, Global Green News, emailed to all employees. Symantec has also established an intranet site titled “Green is the color of confidence” to provide employees with resources and information about how Symantec is putting its corporate environmental commitment into practice.
Green Teams
Green Teams engage employees in identifying ways that Symantec can minimize its environmental footprint. In partnership with Corporate Responsibility and Global Facilities Management, the teams find ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle materials. The formal mission of the Green Teams is to “identify and implement environmentally responsible practices that support the company’s environmental platform, raise awareness, and culminate with measurable reductions in our carbon footprint.”
Green Team members work to educate and engage their fellow employees in personal behavior changes. They also identify opportunities for the Facilities and IT teams to make physical changes to buildings, data centers, and other facilities in order to save energy and water and reduce waste.
Symantec Green Teams are locally managed and directed. For example, in the past few months:
- Teams around the world have strengthened their recycling programs in owned buildings and requested the start of programs in leased buildings. Some sites have been able to reduce their paper usage up to 50 percent by introducing double sided printing and educating employees about paper use reduction.
- Our Roseville facility has installed motion sensors to switch off lights, installed water-saving aerators, and now shuts off roof-top cooling/heating units at night.
- The Dublin team, which works in an ISO 14000-certified building, does extensive measurement of trash vs. recycled materials (with 77 percent of waste recycled) and includes composting bins in all break areas and the café. Dublin also has introduced bike to work days to help lower car emissions in their local communities.
- Beijing’s Green Team created a program called, “Living Green, Green Office, and Green Society”. They held a lecture on green life to help educate employees on their environmental impact, at which a “Green Life” pamphlet with a personal note from the Senior Site Executive was distributed to provide employees with guidance on actions each person can take.
Symantec currently has 26 Green Teams representing locations in 16 countries.
“Green IT” is a broad term that defines efforts to embed environmentally beneficial functionality such as energy and e-waste reduction into computer hardware, software, facilities, and planning. Green IT enables companies to be more efficient in their use of energy, materials, and personnel to run their computer systems, thus saving money while contributing to a cleaner and healthier environment.
Green IT encompasses the concept of a “Green Data Center”. Data centers form the critical hub of modern-day computing. These large facilities, housing hundreds or thousands of servers that store critical information, require significant amounts of energy to power equipment and maintain strict temperature, security, and backup controls. A Green Data Center utilizes less energy, produces fewer emissions, and reduces the amount of toxic or hazardous chemicals in use.
Symantec has developed practices and software tools that apply techniques such as clustering (consolidating machines to use the smallest number possible), storage tiering (only using high-energy, high-performance equipment when necessary), and data deduplication (eliminating saved versions of the same data) to reduce overall data storage needs. By consolidating and even closing data centers, companies, including Symantec, can conserve energy, reduce GHG emissions, and save money on IT and real estate expenditures.
Green Data Center Activities
During FY09, Symantec’s IT department continued to drive efficiencies across all of Symantec’s global data centers through enhancement and consolidation; virtualization; and standardization of processes, software and hardware. The results were remarkable: Symantec generated over $1.6M in electricity savings for the calendar year 2008 through the IT operational efficiencies of using our own products.
Specific activities included:
- IT consolidated three data center locations – two U.S.-based co-location centers and one U.S.-managed service provider – resulting in 45 devices being decommissioned. Only two devices were migrated to a central data center.
- We reduced the Symantec Anti-Virus/Symantec Client Security footprint from 13 global servers to three centrally located servers, allowing us to reduce the support headcount from six global administrators to two local administrators.
- IT completed 42 percent of its storage consolidation plan using Symantec’s “Command Central for Storage” and “Storage Foundation” storage management tools, resulting in a reduction of 11 modular storage arrays, freeing up 22 cabinets worth of physical space. We expect to reduce drive spindles from 3,089 to 667, reducing space and power for the targeted arrays by 78 percent. Fifty-eight additional storage arrays will be consolidated, freeing up more than 100 cabinets worth of space and power.
- The Arizona Data Center became a participant in the ENERGY STAR Data Center Infrastructure Rating Development Program led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This center also implemented a five-degree increase in its chilled water supply temperature, raising the ambient temperature and using less energy to cool the environment.
- In preparation for a new 20,000 square foot data center expansion at our Arizona facility, during FY09, IT focused its thinking on the future of service delivery and how our network design could support these goals. As one outcome of this process, the expanded Data Center received LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in July 2009.
We help our customers reap similar benefits by offering free analyses of their data center operations, and providing solutions based on a complete suite of energy-reducing and efficiency-improving Symantec, Altiris, and Veritas software products. Learn more about these services in our Green IT Solution Factsheet.
For more information about Symantec’s Green Data Center solutions, please visit our Green IT Web site.
Green IT Report
In this year’s annual Green IT Report, released May 2009, Symantec found that Green IT has reached critical mass, with virtually all the companies surveyed discussing green strategy. The survey also revealed that green budgets are rising and IT functions are willing to pay a premium on energy-efficient products. Report highlights include:
- 97 percent of survey respondents state they are at least discussing a green IT strategy and 45 percent have already implemented green IT initiatives.
- Key drivers in decision-making (outside of cost and efficiency benefits) were cited as reducing electricity consumption (90 percent), reducing cooling costs (87 percent), and corporate pressure to be “green” (86 percent).
- 83 percent of respondents are now responsible or cross-charged for the electricity consumed in the data center—bringing visibility and accountability to bear on the ultimate consumer of these resources.
- 73 percent of respondents expect an increase in green IT budgets over the next 12 months; 19 percent expect increases of more than 10 percent.
- Two-thirds of respondents said they would pay at least 10 percent more for energy-efficient products; 41 percent are willing to pay at least 20 percent more.
Read the full Green IT Report for more information.
Membership in Green IT Organizations
Symantec participates in organizations and associations that are working to promote standards and practices in Green IT, including, among others:
The Green Grid, a consortium of information technology companies and professionals seeking to lower the overall consumption of power in data centers around the globe. The organization is chartered to develop meaningful, platform-neutral standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve energy-efficient performance of global data centers. Symantec IT holds a leadership position within the Technical Committee of the Green Grid.
In March 2009, Symantec IT represented the Green Grid at the first meeting in a series requested by the Japanese government. Senior representatives from the Green Grid; the United States government, the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Japan’s Green IT Promotional Council; the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry; and the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association met in Washington, D.C. to discuss global strategies to improve energy efficiency. Findings and best practices were shared with the purpose of arriving at a set of metrics and indices which can be formally adopted by each organization to improve data center energy efficiency.
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a computer industry consortium dedicated to the development and promotion of standards for storage and storage networking, as well as technologies and educational services to empower the IT community. In 2007, the SNIA created two new groups aimed at addressing "green" standards for storage. The Green Storage Technical Work Group has established a roadmap that will create standards for measuring and managing the power consumption of storage.
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative, an organization whose member companies commit to manufacturing and/or purchasing energy-efficient PCs and servers and to broadly deploying power management technology. By publicly declaring their support for this important effort, companies demonstrate their commitment to the “greening” of IT. Symantec is a member and sponsor of this organization.
Meeting the challenge of climate change
Emissions related to energy use in Symantec’s buildings, data centers, and research labs constitute the major portion of the company’s GHG releases. We are looking at new ways to cut GHG emissions across the company, through implementation of Green IT as well as the deployment of other conservation and efficiency solutions.
Symantec will likely be affected, to a varying extent in different parts of the world, by climate change regulations as they are adopted. We operate our business in areas that have already begun to introduce climate change regulatory compliance language, requirements, and/or guidelines, including California and various parts of Europe. We anticipate that the company may be required to comply with new regulations related to climate change in the near future.
New regulations represent both risks and opportunities that Symantec would assess through its process to identify and comply with regulations worldwide. We expect to focus in particularly on regulations pertaining to environmental management, carbon footprint reduction, and energy efficiency.
To manage the risks from GHG emissions from our operations and identify cost-effective mitigation opportunities, we joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s Climate Leaders program in 2009. Through the Climate Leaders program, Symantec committed to: 1) Develop a corporate-wide GHG inventory of the six major greenhouse gases and report progress annually based on detailed EPA protocols and guidance; 2) Develop a corporate GHG Inventory Management Plan based on a detailed EPA checklist to institutionalize the inventory process; and 3) Set an aggressive corporate-wide GHG emissions reduction goal to be achieved over the next 5 to 10 years.
In 2009, Symantec gathered more data and used country specific emissions factors based on the GHG Protocol “Indirect CO2 Emissions from Purchased Electricity”* ,to quantify our emissions for Scope 2. In the future, Symantec will calculate its corporate-wide emissions using the Climate Leaders GHG Inventory Guidance, which defines how Partners working with EPA account for and report their GHG emissions. This Guidance is based on the existing GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
* Version 3.0, March 2008, developed by the World Resources Institute and in association with the electric grid sub-region defined by eGRID
| Total Global Emissions in tonnes CO2e | FY09 | FY08 |
| Scope 2 and 3 emissions | 208,600 | 218,755 |
Symantec does not currently report on Scope 1 emissions as our portfolio does not include on-site energy production or other industrial activities.
In May 2008, we established a goal to reduce our emissions by 15 percent by the end of FY12 from a FY08 baseline, as measured in pounds per square foot of real estate. Overall, from 2008 to 2009 we have decreased our CO2 emissions by 8 percent, which represents a significant step towards our goal.
For more detailed information on Symantec’s carbon footprint, please see the Company’s response to the Carbon Disclosure Project.
| FY09 | FY08 |
| Energy consumption (in MWh) |
| Total energy consumption | 261,912 | 262,428 |
| GHG emissions (in thousands of tonnes of CO2e) |
| Total emissions | 163 | 166 |
| GHG emissions from air travel (in thousands of tonnes of CO2e) |
| 45 | 53 |
The data presented for FY09 was calculated using the GHG Protocol and associated country emissions factors. Data presented for FY08 is a restatement, with revisions based on additional data gathered and the application of calculations provided in the GHG Protocol and associated country emissions factors.
To help limit our environmental impact in and around our global headquarters in California, Symantec joined the Sustainable Silicon Valley's (SSV) Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction Initiative in May 2006. We pledged to reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent at our headquarters facilities by 2010 from a FY07 baseline. We surpassed this goal in mid-FY08, achieving upwards of an 18 percent reduction, by consolidating our Sunnyvale, California data center into our larger, more environmentally friendly and efficient data center located in Arizona. We have continued to implement environmental projects to further reduce our CO2 emissions in the Silicon Valley Region in FY09, further contributing to the SSV’s 20 percent overall reduction goal for the entire region.
On a national scale, Symantec became a member of the Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) group in March 2009. BICEP is urging the U.S. Congress to adopt a national renewable portfolio standard (RPS), requiring that 20 percent of U.S. electricity be generated from wind, solar, and other renewable resources by 2020. The group’s key principles include reducing GHG emissions, promoting energy efficiency, stimulating renewable energy, advocating the creation of green jobs, and limiting new coal-fired power plants to those that capture and store carbon emissions. BICEP and its member companies will work directly with members of Congress, lobbying for legislative action consistent with these principles. Read more about BICEP here.
Harnessing energy efficiency
We are continuously looking at new ways to make our data centers and our research-and-development labs more energy-efficient. We also reach out to our IT customers to suggest steps they can take to reduce energy use at their facilities. Successes to date include the rollout of a custom power profile tool to all Symantec workstations. The tool automatically places computers in standby mode after four hours of inactivity.
Additionally, we are pursuing the ENERGY STAR rating for our facilities. Commercial buildings that have earned ENERGY STAR use on average 35 percent less energy than typical similar buildings and generate one-third less CO2. One of Symantec’s buildings achieved ENERGY STAR in 2007 and 2008: Springfield, Oregon. Even though ENERGY STAR is a U.S.-based program, we are applying the requirements of this standard to all of our owned sites across the globe. These sites include Cupertino, Mountain View, Whisman, and Culver City, California; Tucson, Arizona; Roseville, Minnesota; Dublin, Ireland; Pune, India; and Green Park, United Kingdom. We have also installed sub-metering systems in the Americas and the EMEA region and will report on results in the coming year.
Other steps that we have taken to lower our energy consumption include the installation of motion sensor economizers for lighting systems; analyzing and managing our electrical, water, and gas bills (to identify spikes or inefficient equipment); use of programmable thermostats; use of low-consumption compact fluorescent lamps; replacement of office equipment and bathroom fixtures with more-efficient models; purchasing and replacing equipment with ENERGY STAR products; sealing off of unused areas to limit heating and cooling needs; installation of insulation; and the utilization of natural day light.
Adopting Sustainable Building Practices
The bulk of Symantec’s direct environmental impacts come from energy and materials use associated with the company’s buildings and facilities. We have developed a “Landlord Resume” factsheet to help educate landlords about Symantec’s commitment to sustainability, to assist Global Facilities Management with eco-friendly landlord contract negotiations, to provide background to our Real Estate team when looking for new space, and to educate employees, other corporations, and the public.
Another way that we are minimizing environmental impact is through our corporate policy of applying sustainable building practices to the constructing of new buildings. Where practicable, we are seeking U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for New Construction (NC).
The recent completion of Symantec’s new Culver City campus demonstrates the company’s commitment to green building. The site was built to LEED NC Gold standards and achieved Gold certification in 2008. The site also received an International Interior Design Association award for environment excellence in construction; in addition to its state-of-the-art materials and systems, the site’s open plan layout is designed to minimize future construction remodels to reduce cost and construction waste. The new construction forecasted savings include:
ENERGY: Savings of approximately $523,585.00 per year (electricity and natural gas). Approximate savings over 5 years: $2,617,925.00 (as compared to a base case designed to meet California Title 24 building energy code).
CARBON: Approximately 2,817 tons of carbon dioxide is diverted through energy savings per year. Approximate diversion over 5 years: 14,085 tons (based on expected building energy consumption using the Department of Energy’s model).
WATER: Savings of approximately 1,468,688 gallons per year. Approximate savings over 5 years: 7,343,440 gallons (based on LEED NC 2.2 WE C1&C3).
CONSTRUCTION WASTE: Diverted approximately 4,881 tons of construction waste from the landfill. Nearly 83 percent of construction waste was diverted from landfills, and more than 22 percent of all materials specified were made of recycled content.
We have also enrolled existing owned Symantec buildings in the LEED Existing Buildings (EB) program. On April 22, 2009 (Earth Day in the United States), Symantec received notification that the Springfield, Oregon site had been awarded LEED certification for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance Gold rating for implementing best practices in energy, water, waste, air quality management; transportation; land protection; endangered species protection; and natural resource conservation, and for improving operational efficiencies throughout the building’s lifecycle. Springfield’s achievements to date include:
- Recycling increased from 8 cubic yards to 40 cubic yards per week, diverting waste from landfills.
- Enhanced HVAC system brings additional fresh air into the building, helping to reduce future energy costs.
- Rain sensors have been added to the irrigation lines of the sprinkler system, turning off water automatically if there is already sufficient moisture in the soil.
- The building has 10,000 square feet of bamboo flooring, a rapidly renewable resource that can be harvested every ten years.
- All chemicals and cleaning agents used in the building are environmentally friendly.
- Natural light is available in 99 percent of the building's interior, reducing energy consumption due to lighting - the site has the largest skylight west of the Mississippi.
Facilities plans to pursue LEED certification at Symantec-owned sites in Dublin, Chengdu, Cupertino, Mountain View, Tucson, Green Park, Roseville, Whisman, and Pune.
Conserving Water
Symantec strives to reduce water consumption across all its global sites and facilities. The programs listed below highlight areas that we are currently pursuing, with percentages reflecting how many of our global sites are participating in a given program. We are working to raise participation rates and accelerate water conservation efforts worldwide.
| Program Area | Percentage of Sites Participating Worldwide |
| Low flow toilets | 45% |
| Waterless urinals | 9% |
| Motion sensor facets | 25% |
| Water efficient landscape | 17% |
| Irrigation management | 20% |
| Storm water management | 16% |
Reducing Waste Through Recycling
Symantec is focused on reducing waste, not only through source-reduction initiatives but also by pursuing on-site recycling initiatives and environment-friendly equipment disposal.
| Program Area- Recycling Areas Available | Percentage of Sites Participating Worldwide |
| Desk Recycling | 34% |
| Break Room | 63% |
| Copy Area | 66% |
| Conference Room | 31% |
| Program Area- Products Recycled |
| Paper | 71% |
| Aluminum cans | 49% |
| Batteries | 40% |
| Cardboard | 61% |
| Cell phones | 50% |
| Ewaste | 63% |
As a cost-saving and recycling effort, Symantec IT commonly stores electronic devices that are decommissioned but have not yet reached their full life cycle. Re-deploying the devices to projects and labs for re-use avoids costs associated with new equipment purchases; it also reduces waste. Symantec contracts with third party disposal companies to dispose of devices deemed no longer useful, and requires they be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.
Symantec also donates computers and peripheral equipment to benefit schools near the company’s corporate headquarters in the Bay Area's Silicon Valley. We have given surplus laptops, desktop systems, and associated components to Silicon Valley StRUT (Students Recycling Used Technology), a nonprofit organization that has placed thousands of computers in local elementary, middle, and high schools.
StRUT provides hands-on training to college students in evaluating, repairing, and refurbishing used computers. The refurbished equipment is then given to schools, completing the organization's dual mission of providing technology- and academic-standards-based education for K-12 students while also reducing waste in the environment. Symantec plans to continue working with StRUT to enhance the quality of education at all levels in our local communities.
At our manufacturing facility in Dublin, Ireland, we are participating in the Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher (MAR) program. Beginning in October 2007, Symantec will install licensed copies of Microsoft operating systems on computers that it refurbishes, thus ensuring legal reuse of recycled computer equipment. The refurbished computers are distributed to local schools and charities, including organizations such as the Irish Wheelchair Society and the Dyslexia Association.
Operating with the Environment in Mind
The Symantec Dublin environmental management system (EMS) has been certified to the ISO 14001 standard since 1994, and environmental processes are audited internally. Any environmental incidents or complaints are managed through the Global Controlled Actions System, which incorporates full root-cause analysis and corrective and preventative action processes. There were no environmental incidents, complaints, or violations at the Dublin facility in FY09.
Symantec Dublin sets annual environmental program objectives and targets as part of the facility’s EMS. Among other initiatives and achievements in FY09, Dublin:
- Moved to Airtricity as its energy supplier. Airtricity produces 89 percent of its energy from wind power
- Installed intelligent lighting in open plan areas, resulting in a savings of 251,000kWh per year
- Introduced 100 percent recycled paper
- Continued to participate in a program to recycle “confidential” paper, saving a total of 246 trees from destruction over the course of 2007 and 2008
We are currently assessing the Dublin facility for potential LEED certification.
The table below shows the amount of waste recycled vs. the amount of waste sent to landfills at the Dublin facility from 2004 to 2008.
Responsible Software Packaging
Electronic Product Delivery
For more than 10 years, Symantec has offered customers the ability to download software directly, as opposed to purchasing software on CDs. Approximately 80 percent of Symantec’s products are currently delivered electronically, up from 68 percent in FY07 and 58 percent in FY06. Electronic delivery greatly reduces consumer-generated waste as well as Symantec’s carbon emissions from product transport.
Product Packaging
Symantec has integrated the concept of “reduce, reuse, recycle” into the software and software packaging manufacturing processes. Consumer products are packaged in smaller boxes than in previous years which require less material to build, produce, and store. New package designs are already distributed at 70 percent of retail outlets in the Americas and are being introduced in the EMEA and the APJ regions.
To further conserve paper, Symantec is using 10 percent recycled/7 percent post-consumer waste paper stock and soy-based inks for all consumer packaging in North America. This paper stock is SFI-certified, meaning that it was responsible sourced from well-managed forests. In FY09, we removed the product manuals from the Norton AntiVirus U.S. products, which resulted in a savings of 23,940 lbs (or 11.97 tons) of paper, equivalent to 287 trees.
We have also implemented a program to reuse cardboard packaging, shipping cartons, totes, and other materials. The company has switched to cleaner printing inks and replaced hard plastic CD cases with flexible paper and plastic envelopes.
To promote further innovation, Symantec has established a new “GoGreen Wiki” in the Consumer Business Unit. The wiki is designed to keep employees informed about the company's efforts around sustainable packaging, as well as to provide a forum for capturing ideas for further process improvements. Employees are invited to explore the wiki, ask questions, and make suggestions on how to deliver products to customers in a way that has the least impact on the environment while enhancing the customer experience.
Transportation
Symantec is cutting down on global travel with video conferencing. In September 2007 we installed HP Halo Collaboration Studios in several global locations to facilitate increased levels of face-to-face collaboration without requiring increases in company travel. Halo Studios video conferencing delivers high-definition video images of conference participants and shared laptop images and objects using state-of-the-art video and audio technology. During FY09 we rolled out an additional Halo Studio in our Heathrow, Florida office, bringing our total installation count to seven. Up to ten additional Studio installations are currently scheduled for FY10.
Symantec is helping to facilitate the use of alternative transportation (biking, carpooling, public transportation, and company-sponsored shuttles at several locations, etc.) to make our employees’ commute more environmentally friendly. Our Green Teams assist in organizing local clubs to support Symantec’s global corporate travel initiative. We have also instituted programs for employees to work from home or alternative office environments.