Sustainability in the supply chain: Dell needs to move quickly

Filed in archive Point of view on June 22, 2007

I think you might have heard about Michael Dell's statements in his recent trip to Europe: The ambition to turn Dell into "greenest technology company on earth".

sustainable initiatives in the context of supply chains have gained attention in the past three years and as a result, many companies have jumped into the field, to mention a few:

- IBM spends $1bn a year on increasing IT efficiency,
- Hewlett-Packard's plans to cut energy consumption by 20 per cent in three years
- Apple is conducting serious efforts to eliminate toxic components from its computer equipment.
- Sweden's Ericsson, the telecommunications equipment company, has set targets to reduce power consumption and BT, the UK telecoms operator, has pledged to audit its data center energy use.
- Fujitsu Siemens Computers, the European PC manufacturer has promised the UK's 350 largest companies that it will run their data centers 40 per cent more efficiently or donate £10,000 to an environmental charity.

I think the list is already long enough and it clearly seems that , Mr. Dell will have a tough time to close the gap with other PC-related companies which are currently pioneering green supply chain management. Don't you think so?