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A cleaner, greener Dell
Dell Inc. used to get beat up pretty regularly by environmentalists before founder and CEO Michael Dell found a greener side a few years ago.
Wednesday, the Round Rock, Texas-based computer maker got some green praise from the tree-hugging crowd after it announced it had met its biggest and latest environmental goal - well ahead of schedule.
By switching to “green” energy produced from renewable resources, cutting back on electricity consumption and buying carbon “offsets” such as portions of a forest in Madagascar, Dell said it is now carbon neutral, meeting its earlier pledge to do so by the end of 2008.
Like Dell, lots of big companies have voluntarily slashed their carbon emissions to do their part to fight global warming. Many are now carbon neutral. But Dell is the biggest technology company to go carbon-neutral, and it can now thumb its nose at competitors such as Apple Inc. that may have a better environmental image but really can’t back it like Dell can.
Dell earlier this year announced its corporate headquarters near Austin is 100 percent powered by “green” renewable energy, although some local environmentalists dispute that its using the cleanest energy sources it can. Since 2004, Dell’s overall investment in “green” electricity has grown from 12 million kWh to 116 million kWh, according to the company.
In keeping with its growth in green, Dell also announced Wednesday it is making additional investments in wind power in the United States, China and India. It also is partnering with Conservation International to protect more than 591,000 acres of habitat in the Republic of Madagascar. Doing so will help prevent more than 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere over the next five years, according to the group.
Environmentalists generally praise Dell for its recent track record, but that doesn’t mean the company can’t do better, some say. Earlier this week, Greenpeace took issue with the company in a report that said it found Dell computers - along with TVs and other electronics from companies including Microsoft, Sony, Philips, Nokia, Canon and Siemens - in landfills in Ghana, in Africa.
Greenpeace said the goods, which contain hazardous toxic chemicals such as mercury, lead and brominated flame retardants, apparently were shipped there and subsequently dumped by “recyclers” who claimed they were “second-hand goods.”
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