Dell Tops List of Top 500 Greenest Companies in the United States
Dell Tops List of Top 500 Greenest Companies in the United States
Posted 10/19/2010 at 5:54am
| by Paul Lilly
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Dell frequently puffs its chest and talks about how awesome it is at reducing carbon footprints and getting along with Mother Nature, and Newsweek has taken notice. The OEM ranks No. 1 in Newsweek's "Green Rankings" list of U.S. companies, edging out Hewlett-Packard (No. 2) and IBM (No. 3).
Newsweek noted that Dell's laptops and desktops are now built to use 25 percent less energy than comparable systems made in 2005, which along with other efforts have saved customers some $5 billion in energy costs over the past few years. Newsweek also praised Dell for using 7.2 million pounds of post-consumer recycled plastic to build new PCs, the equivalent of recycling 263 million water bottles.
Technology companies dominated the list by accounting for eight of the top 10 spots, and 49 of the top 500 spots.
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MichelleMatDell
October 19, 2010 at 7:57am
Hey guys - Michelle at Dell here. Thanks for the feedback about our packaging. It would be great if you could tell me which product(s) you received that included excess or ineffective packaging. We're working hard to ensure we're not shipping anything more than we need to to ensure products arrive safely. I'll pass your feedback to our packaging team so they can improve whatever isn't working.
So you know, in December 2008, we announced a plan to revolutionize computer packaging. By 2012, Dell aims to reduce packaging volume by 10 percent; increase the amount of recycled content in packaging by 40 percent; and increase the amount of materials in packaging that’s curbside recyclable to 75 percent. To achieve these goals, the company is implementing a strategy based on the three C’s:
- Cube: How big is the box? Could it be smaller?
- Content: What is the packaging made of? Could it be made of something better?
- Curb: Is it easily recycled?
lunchbox73
October 19, 2010 at 8:14am
A good example is a monitor:
Take the VGA cable for example. For some reason that I can't fathom one end of the cable is attached to the monitor and the other end is wrapped in a plastic bag secured by two twist ties. The monitor is safely secured in a box surrounded by styrofoam. What purpose does this little bag have?
The power cable is in a bag. The monitor stand is in a bag. The display is in a bag AND has a piece of foam protecting the front.
Not to mention the CD with the user guide. What percentage of those get instantly tossed in the trash? 99.4%?
Just eliminating all that crap could save you guys a bunch of dough and make it easier on my dumpster.
OliverAtDell
October 19, 2010 at 11:48am
Hi - Oliver at Dell, here. This is a great example that allows us to explain that those small bags do serve a purpose. They are used to either keep particulate matter out of connector ends - as on the VGA cable; provide surfaces for labels in the picking operations during manufacture or fulfillment operations; or to provide a protective layer for scratch resistance as on the display.
The user guide is a legal requirement in many countries.
Thank you for your shared concern for a greener planet.
lunchbox73
October 19, 2010 at 1:31pm
Not to split hairs here Oliver but the cable connector is the only thing NOT covered by the bag.
ShadowDragoonFTW
October 19, 2010 at 8:24am
I actually prefer to have the drivers disc and user guides. The drivers come in handy for someone that ends up re-installing their computer often (as I do). The guides, however, aren't necessary as long as there's a virtual copy available for download in an easy-to-find spot on the website.
The place I works for buys Dell products fairly often, and I must say, they do a good job with their laptops. Very minimal. Some foam supports for the laptop, which itself is in a sleeve, and a secondary box for all of the cables, discs, and paperwork. Very practical, and nothing too overblown.
Eoraptor
October 19, 2010 at 8:23am
Especially when all those little poly bags actually increase dangerous static buildup when un-packaging a system. And yes, unload the AOL, erm monitor driver CD's. What system can't run a standard display at most/all resolutions, and that's really the perview of the Graphics card and driver, not the monitor in any event.
ShadowDragoonFTW
October 19, 2010 at 8:27am
There's a difference between "standard resolutions" and "most/all resolutions". Keep that in mind. Most monitors have a hard limit as to how high their resolution will go (my current LG monitor only goes to a maximum of 1440 x 900). Default system drivers rarely go that high. And yes, the monitor driver does affect that. Some bizarre (but still used) resolutions are such an odd configuration that most basic monitor drivers do not cover them at all.
Yes, the graphics card plays a major part, and if it's an old enough card, it won't even come close to touching certain resolutions. But, you gotta understand that the reverse is also true.
Eoraptor
October 19, 2010 at 9:08am
That's certainly true. I service several visually impared customers with odd monitor configurations (for instance, one runs a 21" CRT with huge color reproduction abilities, but runs it at 8 bit color or even 256 color, 800X600 res but with refresh rates north of 87 hz)
And of course screens of 27" or greater, or ultra wide aspect aniscopic curved screens.
But when talking about commodity 19"-24" screens? Running at a consumer standard resolution supplied by windows drivers, onboard graphics, or low end add-in cards? how much tons of plastic, thin metallic foil, scrin printed ink, paper packaging, and shipping weight could be saved by dumping plastic disks? Sure, package a disk with a professional or enthusiast grade screen, but do away with disks in commodity/off-the-shelf products.
ShadowDragoonFTW
October 19, 2010 at 10:02am
Hmm... I suppose I can agree with that sentiment. Not EVERY model of monitor needs a driver disc, but the ones that are, by default, a little out of the ordinary range should.
big_montana
October 19, 2010 at 6:03am
Now, if Dell would only reduce the amount of packaging they use to ship their systems in. Dell uses ten times the amount of packaging the Lenovo and HP use, and yet, you still receive damaged systems form Dell. I would rather Dell concentrate on improving their quality also, as their Latitude line of laptops has to be the worst quality wise on the planet.
Eoraptor
October 19, 2010 at 7:59am
yup, mad love on the packaging spam.free packing material is one thing, but I know blind equipment and precision optical tech that comes with less foam!
but I have to say, I've had more problems with Acer lappys than Dell, I can't think of one I own or have encountered that hasn't suffered component death in less than a year. (okay, there is one, my grandmother's 4250, but it is almost never moved, and at 3 years old, its trackpad left click button just wore out)
lunchbox73
October 19, 2010 at 6:17am
Ha! You beat me to it. The amount of extra packaging, boxes, bags, ties, tape, foam wrap, etc that Dell puts in their boxes is crazy. Cut most of that out and they can be even "greener."
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