by Shane Henson — August 15, 2012—Multinational computer technology giant Dell Inc. is proving that companies can and should strive for both profits and sustainability. The company recently released its Fiscal Year 2012 (FY12) Corporate Responsibility Report, which highlights its many achievements in the area of environmental responsibility.
According to Dell, the company reduced its facilities carbon footprint by up to 16% from FY08-FY12 and drove toward zero waste by recycling or reusing approximately 98% of its nonhazardous manufacturing waste. Looking forward, as Dell’s operational footprint represents less than 10% of its total opportunity to drive more sustainable outcomes, the company says it will focus in the next year on setting longer-term goals for helping its supply chain and customer base become more efficient.
In 2012 Dell achieved ambitious goals set out in its 3Cs (cube, content, curb) packaging strategy by: reducing the size of packaging more than 12%, increasing the amount of recycled and renewable content in packaging up to 40%, and ensuring that up to 75% of packaging is recyclable at curbside. According to Dell, this work has eliminated more than 20 million pounds of packaging material since 2008 and helped spur the use of innovative and biodegradable materials such as bamboo and mushrooms.
Dell also recycled more than 192 million pounds of end-of-life computer equipment last year, an almost 30 percent increase over the previous year, keeping the company on pace to meet its goal of recycling 1 billion cumulative pounds by 2014.
In addition, all of Dell’s removable media storage devices, memory and hard drives became free of brominated/chlorinated flame retardants (BFRs/CFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), in FY12, and Dell offered BFR/CFR/PVC-free standard configurations of all Latitude laptop and XPS 13 Ultrabook products earlier this fiscal year, with more in planning. Although not accomplished yet, Dell remains committed to its goal of ensuring that all newly introduced personal computing products are completely free of BFRs/CFRs and PVC.
Further, Dell added fresh air validation to an entire line of data center equipment, establishing that it can run in customer data centers under warranty at up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit (up to 45 degrees Celsius). This innovation allows many more Dell customers to avoid energy-intensive chillers and instead rely on fans or other solutions that take advantage of outside air.
