CASE STUDY: Dell - Recycling is Important

By Sunshine Chen

Other than being a company known to have numerous achievements in the industry, Dell's achievements extend to being green as well. As the first major computer company to go carbon-neutral, Dell has always gone the extra mile for green living, always practicing the three R's of recycling, always being mindful of helping to recycle.

For its operations, Dell has implemented a company-wide power management program for automatically turning off machines during night time and periods of inactivity. The act is equivalent to avoiding the production of around 8,500 tons of carbon dioxide.

Another waste reduction step the company took is Dell's requirement of their logistics suppliers to use biodiesel fuel for a part of their energy demands in a year. Other recycling effects include getting 35 percent of the company's U.S. energy demands from clean and renewable sources, assessing emissions from delivery vehicles and buses, requiring supplier vehicles that have unacceptable levels of emissions to mend their vehicles within ten days, and taking out the use of all brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride.

Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell says the opportunity to make Information Technology green must be taken now, adding that in the future, people should look back and give green IT credit for helping in the mitigation of climate change effects, strengthening global industries and charting a new and prosperous low-carbon economy.

Dell's initiative to promote recycling involves a website dedicated to looking after the environment. The ReGeneration site is an online experience for allowing people to participate in caring for the environment and connecting to other people via projects and competitions. The site makes use of fun activities to show people how recycling helps the environment.

Among the many green projects Dell has undertaken include:

• Plant a Tree - a program in partnership with Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org which gives customers the opportunity to plant trees and offset their CO2 emissions attained through computer use.

• Plant a Forest for Me - a program that allows organizations all over the world to facilitate tree-planting in sustainable reforestation projects. Partners include AMD, ABN, AMRO, Ask.com, CGI, Staples, Salaesforce.com, Targus, and WellPoint.

• Reconnect - a computer recycling program in cooperation with Goodwill Industries for consumers who want to recycle their unwanted computer equipment by dropping off their computers at Goodwill donation centers.

• Dell Exchange - a free online trade-in program that allows U.S. customers to keep electronics out of landfills by exchanging them for Dell gift cards.

• Dell Greenprint Advisor - a Dell Earth online resource for helping organizations become greener and become more efficient. A questionnaire will help an organization see how sustainable it is and provide suggestions on where future actions should be focused.

Dell's numerous green efforts, along with its ReGeneration motto of "reducing, reusing, and recycling" has been proven to be effective in the promotion of recycling, earning the company the no. 1 ranking for corporate sustainability for 2009 as reported by Technology Business Research (TBR), one of the leading high-tech market research and consulting firms focusing on computer and software analyses. With the various process of recycling it has currently been using, Dell is viewed as setting a good example for other technology companies to take steps towards reducing their own carbon footprint.

Sunshine Chen is a seasoned writer, having travelled around the world, largely putting all her experiences and the sights and sounds she has come across to paper. She now writes extensively about topics related to green news, mostly on renewable energy, but also on a variety of related topics as well. When not travelling around the world, she is based in Central Hong Kong, taking in the myriad colours, flavours, and scents of the melting pot that Hong Kong is known for.

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