The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

'Carbon neutral' Dell's wind-blowing pays off

Round Rock doesn't fart around

SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had

Computer maker Dell has claimed it is now a carbon neutral company.

It also reckons it’s the greenest technology firm on the planet (reader’s competition: spot the oxymoron and win a Madagascan tree).

Boss Michael Dell has been pushing the green agenda for some time now. In September last year he announced a series of programmes to shrink the company's carbon footprint and offset its greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2008.

Yesterday the firm claimed to have beaten that target five months ahead of schedule, but how so?

Apparently, it met its goal early by “implementing an aggressive global energy-efficiency campaign and increasing purchases of green power, verified emission reductions and renewable energy certificates”.

Dell also threw in some stats to help bolster its carbon neutral claim. Its annual investment in green leccy from utility energy guzzlers providers – including wind, solar and methane gas capture – has shot up since 2004 from 12 million kWh to 116 million kWh today. That’s an increase of 870 per cent, eco-pickers. Then there’s Dell’s global HQ campus that is now powered 100 per cent by green energy.

Mickey boy thanked all his troops for their huge effort in making Dell so darned eco-friendly, saying: “As always, our work is only getting started and this has never been more true than our focus on green.”

For once, he doesn’t even mean the colour of money. Nope, it’s all about hugging trees these days in good old Round Rock.

Dell’s also throwing cash at wind power in the US, China and India – regions where it has rather large data centre footprints. Pumping out Web 2.0 apps via the power of wind will help the vendor avoid producing 400,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, it claimed.

Oh, and the company’s even saving moola too. It’s kept a somewhat paltry $3m in the piggy bank annually from its efforts. We say that's enough cash to buy all Dell employees a well-earned shot of wheatgrass apiece. The lucky, lucky lot. ®

Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner

Latest Comments

How much is 116 million kWh annually?

Is 116 million kWh annyally much? It is very, very little, representing continuous operation of 1 (read:one) windmill of 1.3 MW.

0
0

New Icon

I think we need a scorched earth icon...

0
0

Agree with commments but at least Dell is trying

I do expect that Dell is not completely CO2 neutral, but at least it si trying. If other corporations the size of Dell took the same action it would have a real impact on the global environment.

We need more high profile companies saying they are going to do this and for their CEOs to support it.

A lot done, a lot more to do.

0
0

More from The Register

SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
Zombie lawsuit back and wants to suck the brains out of Linux
 breaking news
You don't need phone lines or cable for ANYTHING, says Dish
The satellite-dish man can sort you out with phone and broadband over the air too
 breaking news
What's HP got under wraps? Looks awfully flash and tape shaped
What happens in Vegas won't stay there - we've got the details
AMD lifts the veil on Opteron, ARM chip plans for 2014
Not much action going on in 2013, though
Microsoft borks botnet takedown in Citadel snafu
Stupid Redmond kicked over our honeypots, wail white hats
IBM's $1bn layoffs latest: Now axe swings in US, Canada - reports
Union claims 121 storage bods canned after dismal sales
NetApp musters muscular cluster bluster for ONTAP busters
Storage array OS overhauled to juggle more nodes, go down on you, er, less
HP adds 'Haswell' Xeon E3s to entry ProLiant servers
Gussies up MicroServer for SMBs, adds baby switches