That's cool. I wish Apple would do the same.

I'm impressed. Well done, Dell.

I wonder if the brand-new call center building and 6-acre parking lot in my city that was built and abandoned by Dell after 1.5 years was considered in their calculations.

So.. what work have they done in the area of ensuring tha we are not chucking out 8 pounds of plastic components that could be reused when upgrading to a new unit?

Carbon offsets are really a great way to continue doing what we are doing, but simply feel better doing it. We need to expect more than this, and while we can applaud this on a short term, one off basis, I hope that Dell will not only keep their carbon neutral status next year. I hope they do it through a much more sustainable materials management program.

this is something I covered in my analysis of their recent CSR report on Crossroads (www.china-crossroads.com).

Short term feel good solutions are not sustainable and while I am happy to see they are providing much needed funding to the environmental groups, I would really like to see more in the way of their research funding spend for developing plastics that can be recylced without massive amounts of energy, studying how to reduce the need to change a carcass when a chip changes, investing in a common cabling standards etc.

That would be a true program that is in line with their sustainability pitch.

R
www.china-crossroads.com

This is great news. I hope more corporations follow. Unfortunately, I've already vowed never to buy another of Dell's poorly-assembled-out-of-inferior-parts computers ever again. Too bad, that.

And China@crossroads, I think you've missed the point. Dell STARTED by reducing consumption. The remaining emissions they were responsible for were due to things they bought from outside (like energy). They are also requiring disclosure of GHG emissions from other businesses they work with. As such, what you lump together as "offsets" are really the only way they could have eliminated those emissions. We should be encouraging corporations for working to improve themselves, not yelling at them for not achieving your particular ideals.

It's great that Dell is at 95% recycle rate -- if they improved their packaging, it would help their customers reach our recycling goals too!

They'd switched to primarily #4 LDPE block foam, which we can recycle - but later switched back to some compenents coming packed in Styrofoam - which we have to throw out, as we have no local resource for recycling it. Some vendors package entirely with cardboard (Planar I believe is one), we've considered getting all our monitors from them.

Dell also advertised their reusable/returnable cartons for volume CPU orders a few years ago, but that has yet to pan out.

They could also stop all the excess media/documentation all sealed in their individual plastic bags, with every PC when delivering volume orders. We only need 1 copy of that stuff, and we get hundreds with each order.

I do appreciate Dell implementing a well done Buy-Back and recycle/Donation programs before it was mandated. Kudos for that.

it's too bad this wont get nearly the same level of press, that any similar announcement by apple could have made. Not that the Toxic Apple has any plans to do so.

Ditto Carrie. They waste Dell puts into their Business partners is astronomical. When we order 50 computers the waste fills up a 15 foot long, 7 foot wide hallway so that two people can barely fit. And don't get me started on the boxes of CDs and power cords this creates. Every IT shop I have ever worked for throws away 3 or 4 HUGE boxes of power cords and CDs every other year. So why isn't Dell calculating this into their emissions?

Anthony.

Acutally I am not missing the point

1) Any electronics firm who is going to put out a release their carbon neutrality sets a standard, an expectation.

2) Any firm with the cash position of Dell can be carbon neutral through offsets. Does that make them a better company

3) I gave credit to the fact that they have made steps, but I expect a firm who is out publishing the fact that they are carbon neutral to really look at operations and product design to find as real solutions, rather than buying green energy

4) I did not just point fingers and walk away. I pointed out some things that they can tangibly and realistically do to actually reduce their carbon footprint before they even consider buying into off set

There are a hundred ways that Dell can improve on their process, and I am not asking that they all be done right now, but next year I hope to see a reduction in need to buy offsets resulting from a gross reduction in their footprint.

Dell claims that 90%+ of their products can be recycled, and that is fantastic. Question I have is how much of the black boxes are from recycled product vs. virgin plastics? Perhaps by bringing in their old units, and reusing modular components, they can then build new systems with less materials (plastic, capacitors, etc). this will save them on materials, thus reducing their footprint, thus reducing their need for buying offsets.

how is it that having high expectations is a bad thing to begin with anyway. It is how we landed in the mess to begin with. Perhaps we need to start looking at this reports with a much more critical eye and get past the PR of these releases.

This is a process, one that they are taking positive steps on, but it we just accept tree planting as an offset to redesigns, then we are simply accepting that firms cannot actually improve their process any further.

dude, now I'm getting a dell... =)

Dell is not my favourite company due to its poor telephone support but I just bought a monitor from them as my little reward for their going carbon neutral. I figured that that ought to know that as a micro offset to their increased costs of doing green business. They shut down a large facility in my nearby city of Edmonton very unceremoniously a year or so ago and left a lot of people looking for work which was not a very civil thing to do however and there is a lot of bad feelings here about that but hey, corporations are treated like people, right? They have rights for some reason but along wtih those rights, they also have the same responsibilities that we all have..to keep the planet alive for one. I thank them for this carbon neutral approach.