(soft electronic music) Every IT vendor is making sustainability claims right now, but it can be difficult to sort the true sustainability partners from the green washers. Hi, I'm Tom Shields, and on today's Intelligence Report, how to find technology partners that can truly help you on your sustainability journey. You know, while 86% of organizations have created a sustainability strategy, only 35% have acted on it. And one of the biggest challenges with executing is finding vendors who can help, I've got a couple of experts here to discuss. Let's start with Dave at IDC. Dave, tell me how can a decision-maker get past the greenwashing, identify an IT vendor that can really help them on their sustainability journey? I think the right thing to do is ask a lot of questions because there's going to be a difference between what people say they do and what they actually do, right. So whether you look at it from like the things that they're doing for their own company or the way they're helping customers, all of that is important. When you think about the kind of questions to ask around a company's product and how it can help with sustainability, what are the things you're looking for? It's all about efficiency, and so some of it is efficiency of design, but in a lot of the as a service offerings, it's more about how those things are being operated. So all that's important in the overall sustainability story. Thank you. Now, over to NetApp's, Matt Watts to get his perspective. Matt, how do customers select solid sustainability partners? I think people have to look at this on three dimensions. The first one is look at the company. Have they got an ESG report? And then look at the ESG report. W hat does it contain? Are they participating in CDP, in EcoVadis? Are they participating in programs that show they truly have sustainability at the core of what they do? Then I think the second thing is what are they doing around their products? Are they engineering sustainability into the products through titanium power supplies or into the supply chain, even? Using better ways of packaging, using e-waste programs. And then I think the third one is, what is it that they bring to you that can help you operate more sustainability? How can they bring you technologies that enable you to tier to the cloud, that enable you to understand what your data waste looks like? If you look at a company across those three dimensions, it's a good indication of just how much they take sustainability seriously as an organization. With a little diligence, you'll pick technology partners that provides sustainability benefits that will compound for you over time. If you're interested in this topic, we have two other episodes in our sustainability series, one on measurement and continuous improvement, and the other on reducing data waste, check 'em out. (gentle music)