i-eclectica.org

Dell is another company that made a green announcement last week - by committing itself to neutralise its carbon emissions and become carbon neutral by the end of 2008, chairman and CEO Michael Dell announced last Wednesday. In June, the company set the goal of becoming “the greenest technology on the planet.”

Dell (where is Apple?) is the first major computer manufacturer to announce its intention to balance its carbon emissions with activities that reduce carbon in the atmosphere. During a speech in Washington D.C., Dell acknowledged that companies have a responsibility to care for the environment. “There’s been a time in history of business where it’s more important for organisations of all sizes to partner together to positively impact the Earth that well all share,” Dell said. “It’s not enough for Dell to be an environmental leader. We also need to partner with our customers … to dramatically improve our own customers’ environmental impacts.”

To reduce its net carbon emissions, Dell will focus on implementing a number of strategies. Creating more energy-efficient products is one of them, purchasing more energy-efficient electrical power is another, and so is pushing its major suppliers to report and reduce their carbon emissions. If a supplier’s carbon emissions are excessive, the company may penalise the supplier, although Dell didn’t offer details about the penalties.

Dell has also expanded its Plant a Tree for Me program, which allows individual customers to pay a small amount to plant a tree as a way to offset the energy consumption of the laptops or PCs they purchase from the company. Dell has announced a Plant a Forest for Me program, partnering with companies including Salesforce.com, Ask.com, and Advanced Micro Devices in a reforesting program intended to offset carbon emissions.

Tree planting of course is not the only way to reduce carbon emissions. Companies can purchase energy-efficient IT equipment, consolidate servers through virtualisation, and use software to turn off computers and monitors after employees go home, Dell said. And he acknowledged that customers are exerting pressure on vendors to move away from the old price/performance ratio to a new “performance per watt” one. “Thinking about IT in terms of performance per watt forces businesses like ours to rethink the way products are designed and the way they’re used,” Dell said.

Business though is always hesitant to give something for nothing, and one of the usual candidates footing the bill is of course government. It can play a role in encouraging companies to protect the environment, Dell added, for example by giving research credits to companies to improve energy efficiency and providing other [financial, no doubt] incentives for companies to encourage green policies such as telecommuting. If government does chip in, the planet could win of course; a recent Consumer Electronics Association report calculated that the 3.9 million telecommuters in the United States saved 840 million gallons of petrol in a year. Nevertheless, it is interesting how business loves leverage. In the past they wanted incentives that led to polluting the planet, now they want incentives to clean up their mess.

Dell will continue to work with other tech vendors on environmental issues, Michael Dell said. “While we vigorously compete in many areas in our business, when it comes to the environment, there actually are not competitors, only partners,” he said. Although Dan Burton, senior vice president for global public policy at Salesforce.com, hasn’t got the message yet. In praising Dell’s speech, he said: “Dell is really redefining what is corporate philanthropy”. So, again, it’s not about corporate responsibility after having contributed for decades to the environmental pressures - instead it’s about corporate generosity. Burton seems to have some way to go in learning his lesson on corporate spin.

[source on the ‘Dell announcement’ facts: InfoWorld]