This year Dell, the computer maker, will be 100% carbon neutral. They will become carbon neutral by buying carbon reductions. While it’s not the best way to go green it is the fastest and simplest way at the moment. You could see it as a big first step towards a more sustainable second step. One thing is for sure. Dell is trying to take the green lead in the computer world.

Michael Dell, the company’s chairman and CEO, says that “never before in the history of business have we seen such a critical need to build a worldwide community dedicated to improving the environment.” He continued by saying that “leadership starts at home, which is why we [Dell] are going carbon-neutral, but this should only be the beginning of building long-term partnerships with customers, stakeholders and suppliers of all sizes to team up and make a difference for the Earth we all share.”

Dell recently implemented a company-wide power saving program that, according to Dell, will result in a savings of about 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity (about 8,500 tons of CO2). This will also help save Dell about $1.8 million annually.

Dell is also on a pretty good spot on Greenpeace’s guide to greener electronics. But still Dell has no products on the market without the worst chemicals.

In November last year Dell’s Inspiron 531 became the first PC to reach Energy Star 4.0. Dell is also teaming up with ABN AMRO, AMD, Ask.com, Salesforce.com and WellPoint in the “Plant a Tree for Me” program where the companies have committed to offsetting part of their carbon output by planting trees.

Image credit: Joi. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution license.