Dell joins fight against breast cancer
Feb 8, 2009 Social Initiatives
Dell Promise Pink
Dell has announced a partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure, under which it will donate $5 for each Promise Pink series of laptops bought. The money will be used for breast cancer research. Dell has also promised a minimum of $250000 for 2009.
Dell’s Promise Pink range is available today in the Mini 9 & Mini 12 netbooks, as well as the Inspiron 1525, Studio 15 & Studio 17, Studio Hybrid, XPS M1330, the XPS M1530 and the Latitude E4200. This edition of laptops will join Dell’s Product Red range which supports the fight against AIDS in Africa.
Susan G. Komen for the Cure is an organisation spearheading the breast cancer movement and has invested more than $1.3 billion since inception in 1982. It claims to be the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists.
Tags: Breast Cancer, Dell, Promise Pink, Susan G Komen
Pepsi calculates the carbon footprint of Tropicana
Jan 25, 2009 Green Technologies, Stars, Policy and Finance
Tropicana
PepsiCo and the Carbon Trust has launched an innovative partnership to certify the carbon footprint of several PepsiCo products, beginning with Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice.It as been estimated that the carbon footprint for a 64-ounce carton of Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice is 1.7 kilograms.
The measurement and certification is based on the widely-used Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2050 guidelines. Tropicana determined that agricultural and manufacturing-related impacts account for approximately 60 percent of the carbon footprint of its orange juice; transportation and distribution account for another 22 percent, packaging accounts for 15 percent, and consumer use and disposal accounts for the remaining three percent.
Tags: carbon footprint, carbon neutral, Carbon Trust, Dell, Pepsico, Tropicana
Motorola announces phone made from recycled water bottles
Jan 6, 2009 Information of the Day
W233
Motorola announced a new model of cellphone, christened Renew W233. According to Motorola, the W233 is the first phone made from recycled water bottles. It has a carbon neutral footprint, making it attractive for those who are interested in keeping their carbon consumption to a minimum. It also cost 20% less to manufacture. In order to offset the energy used to produce, ship and power the W233, Motorola is making investments in renewable energy programs. The bar-style phone has dual-band 850/1900 GSM/EDGE radios, is rated at nine hours of talk time, and uses CrystalTalk for good call quality. It can support microSD cards up to 2GB and has basic messaging features.
The whole notion of carbon neutrality could be taken with a fistful of salt, if you remember the recent denting of Dell’s claims of the same by Wall Street Journal. So don’t rush out to grab one just now. Wait for independant review of perfomance as well as the green claims. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: carbon neutral, Cell phone, Dell, Motorola, Recycle
WSJ punches holes into Dell’s green claims; raises a bigger question
Jan 2, 2009 Green Technologies
Dell
Few weeks after Dell heaped scorn over Apple’s green cred claims, a recent Wall Street Journal article reveals that Dell itself, which claims to be the “greenest tech company on the planet” has some seriously suspect environmental claims.
Dell has claimed that it has been carbon neutral since the summer of 2008. Not so, says The Wall Street Journal. It points out that the company’s carbon footprint is a self determined metric, with Dell arbitrarily picking its carbon footprint to encompass its boilers and company-owned cars, its buildings’ electricity use, and its employees’ business air travel. But the carbon emissions generated from the sources cited are just a drop in the bucket compared to Dell-related emissions from the oil used by Dell’s suppliers to make its computer parts, the diesel and jet fuel used to ship those computers around the world, or the coal-fired electricity used to run them. Read the rest of this entry »
Dell snipes at Apple’s “greenest notebook” claims
Dec 20, 2008 Green Technologies
Fight!
We have seen Google and Micorsoft boasting about the efficiency of their data centers. We have seen Apple, who were in the crosshairs of Greenpeace, claim that its MacBook is the greenest laptop out there. But now Dell has come out and tried to puncture Apple’s claims.
Bob Pearson, VP—Communities & Conversations, Dell has blogged that Apple has just been making claims in ads, without backing them with facts, has not engaged in discussions about the meaning of being green and then, he goes on to highlight Dell’s own green initiatives over the recent years. Here is an excerpt:
“It was in one of our regular sustainability meetings that Michael challenged us to offer free recycling worldwide for consumers.A big goal and we did it. We hope Apple does the same someday. We challenged ourselves in 2007 to meet a carbon-neutral goal for our operations in 2008 and we did it in August, about five months ahead of schedule. We hope Apple decides to do the same. We challenged ourselves to see how much packaging we could reduce and this led to our recent announcement that we’ll eliminate 20 million pounds of laptop and desktop shipping materials.”
How times have changed! Computer makers are sniping at each other’s green credentials and trying to burnish their own eco-initiaties. Has environmental consciousness gone mainstream in a big way or what?
Tags: Apple, Dell, Greenpeace, Notebooks
Dell Plant a Tree program meets disappointing response
Oct 20, 2008 Natural Resource Conservation, Social Initiatives
Dell Plant A Tree
According to the newspaper Guardian, Dell’s Plant A Tree For Me has met with a disappointing response.
The “Plant a Tree for Me” allows Dell customers to pay $ 2 extra for a laptop ($ 6 for a desktop PC) in order to offset their CO2 emissions by the machine’s electric consumption for 3 years. Dell has partnered for the operation with an NGO that runs a reforestation program.
Unfortunately, only 300,000 consumers have chosen this option, notes Tod Arbogast, head of Dell Sustainable Development division. This represents less than 1% of Dell customers in 2007.
Tags: Dell, Forest Conservation, Green Technology, Plant a Tree