Dell - Environmental Record

Environmental Record

Dell committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its global activities by 40% by 2015, with 2008 fiscal year as the baseline year. It is listed in Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics that scores leading electronics manufacturers according to their policies on sustainability, climate and energy and how green their products are. In November 2011, Dell ranked 2nd out of 15 listed electronics makers (increasing its score to 5.1 from 4.9, which it gained in the previous ranking from October 2010).

Dell was the first company to publicly state a timeline for the elimination of toxic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), which it planned to phase out by the end of 2009. It revised this commitment and now aims to remove these toxics by the end of 2011 but only in its computing products. In March 2010, Greenpeace activists protested at Dell offices in Bangalore, Amsterdam and Copenhagen calling for Dell’s founder and CEO Michael Dell to ‘drop the toxics’ and claiming that Dell’s aspiration to be ‘the greenest technology company on the planet’ was ‘hypocritical’. Dell has launched its first products completely free of PVC and BFRs with the G-Series monitors (G2210 and G2410) in 2009.

In its 2012 report on progress relating to conflict minerals, the Enough Project rated Dell the eighth highest of 24 consumer electronics companies.