Mark Walker's blog

I have had the opportunity to do lots of volunteer work over the years in cities across the U.S. – gleaning food for distribution to families in need, weeding community gardens, painting houses for the elderly and low income, being a classroom mentor, as well as serving on boards of nonprofit organizations. Every activity has been a great personal experience that helped shape my leadership skills, allowed me to think about social problems in new ways, and create perspective on what's important in life.

With all the current discussion on topics like renewable energy, policies to incentivize solar investment, product cost and pricing, and different technologies and which one will emerge as the consumer choice, is anyone asking how the 2 billion people who currently do not have access to electricity obtain that access?

To recognize the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the leaders of Santa Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology and Society asked that very question to experts in the field at a conference sponsored by Applied Materials last month. Billed as “Power to the People, Renewable Energy for Underserved Communities,” a number of subject matter experts explored the topic with business and community leaders, community benefit organization leaders, and Santa Clara students.

Applied Materials employees around the world are marking the 40th anniversary of Earth Day with an impressive selection of environmental projects to improve our planet. At Applied, Global citizenship isn’t just viewed as a one-time a year event and so during the month of April we celebrate the environment and our community with our “Earthworks” program. 

I learned a lesson in tree planting while in Bangalore, India recently. The job is much easier and more fulfilling when you team with children, especially from orphan schools, to accomplish the task. Their eagerness, enthusiasm and elbow grease was a perfect compliment for the dozen Applied Materials India employees who ventured to the outskirts of the city to do a good act for mother nature. We partnered with the NGO Trees for Free who made all the arrangements, found the location and provided volunteer experts to show us the proper tree planting methods.

Recently, I learned The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the highest per capita ecological footprint in the world – if every person in the world lived and consumed natural resources like an average UAE resident, we would require 4.5 planets to sustain the consumption levels! More than 80% of its carbon footprint is due to carbon intensive goods and services, such as energy and water.