Dell fails to convince customers to go green

 

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By Matthew Sparkes

Posted on 2 Oct 2008 at 11:55

Dell is having trouble convincing its customers to go green, with only 1% taking up its voluntary carbon offset scheme.

The Plant a Tree for me Scheme promises to offset the use of a notebook or desktop computer for three years, for just £1 and £3 respectively. However, less than 1% of customers have taken the company up on the offer.

That equates to just 300,000 customers taking part in the scheme, which is run in partnership with the Carbon Fund.

The scheme was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show last January. US users can also participate by donating $2 for a notebook or $6 for a laptop

Dell's business partners have also been encouraged to take part in the Plant a Forest for Me scheme, which works along the same principle, but on the scale of "millions of trees", claims Dell. However, no figures have been released on the success of this program.

Dell has also been working on making its own manufacturing and distribution process more environmentally friendly, claiming in September last year that it would aim to become the "greenest technology company on the planet".

The company announced earlier this year that it had achieved carbon neutrality, by increasing the amount of sustainable power it uses by 870% in four years.

Its ambition to become the greenest technology company will be harder to achieve, though, as Google has invested millions of dollars on the largest corporate solar panel in the world.

Dell also saw disappointing results in the latest Greenpeace Electronics report, where it dropped to eighth place in the list of the most environmentally responsible computer manufacturers.

Dell was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.