Green Wombat

Dell: We're Going Carbon Neutral

Dell today said it will become the first computer maker to neutralize its greenhouse gas emissions. CEO Michael Dell announced a series of measures to shrink the company's carbon footprint and offset  its greenhouse gas emissions in 2008. Upping the ante, he challenged rivals like  Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to follow Dell's (DELL) lead. Proclaiming a corporate commitment to carbon neutrality is all the rage these days and Dell joins tech giants like Google (GOOG), which has pledged to offset its greenhouse gas emissions by 2008. Meanwhile, Silicon Valley giants like Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Sun Microsystems (JAVA) have made public their carbon footprints.

Global warming talk, however, is cheap and Dell now needs to make good on its green words. The company reports its emissions to the Carbon Disclosure Project and data on its carbon footprint will be available Monday on the project's site, a Dell spokesperson told Green Wombat. Dell said it has already been taking action to reduce its electricity use, from automatically shutting down machinery at night to installing energy efficient lighting. Earlier this year it required its suppliers to determine their greenhouse gas emissions as a first step in taking carbon out of its supply chain - a strategy embraced by companies like Wal-Mart (WMT). It also issued a mandate that some suppliers switch to biodiesel to power part of their transportation fleets.

Dell said it will invest in renewable energy like wind power and offset its remaining C02 emissions by putting cash into projects that reduce the risk of global warming. "Dell is working with stakeholders to shape its offset strategy, which will help ensure that offsets are invested in projects that can be monitored and verified," the company said in a statement. "Projects will be evaluated for their long-term viability and assurance that the carbon savings are real."

Google to Go Carbon Neutral by 2008

On the heels of its $11 million push for plug-in hybrids, Google today said it will aim to generate 50 megawatts of renewable energy for its data centers by 2012 as part of its goal to carbon neutralize its operations by the new year. "Towards this end, we will set an internal cost of carbon voluntarily by using a 'shadow price,' the theoretical cost of carbon that we expect under a regulatory market," Google (GOOG) stated, a day after it put its 1.6 megawatt solar array - the largest commerical solar installation in the U.S. - into operation at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. "This will allow us to make operational decisions as if there were already a price on carbon. That in turn enables us to include the true cost of power as one of the key criteria in site selection for our data centers - a cost not yet being recognized by the market, but one that will soon become real through carbon legislation. This is an important tool to reduce the financial risk that our energy investments face, and when evaluating power options, it will also put renewable energy on a level playing field."

Google will tap solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and other renewable energy sources depending on the location of the facility, Google energy strategist Bill Weihl told Green Wombat through a spokesperson. The green electricity may generated on-site or elsewhere.

The search giant will purchase carbon offsets to cover emissions it does not directly eliminate. "As a start, we’ve calculated our own carbon footprint by taking into account the emissions from purchased electricity, employee commuting, business travel, construction, and the manufacturing of our servers," Google said. "And we’ve partnered with the Environmental Resources Trust to have our footprint independently verified." The company also said it will press for public policies to establish energy efficiency standards, renewable energy requirements, public funding for clean energy R&D and the setting of a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

Continental: Fly the Carbon Neutral Skies

photo:continental
"Welcome aboard Continental flight 1536 to New York's Kennedy airport. Beer and wine are available in coach for $5 and carbon offsets can be purchased for $10. Correct change is appreciated."

That scenario will hit the skies later this summer when Continental Airlines (CAL) customers will be given the option to pay a small fee when they book their flight online to offset the greenhouse gas emissions from their flight.  Continental follows Delta (DAL), which last month launched the first U.S. airline carbon offset program, charging $5.50 for a domestic flight and $11 for an international trip.

Continental has hookup up with Sustainable Travel International, a Boulder, Colorado, non-profit, to use the carbon offset fees to finance forest preservation and renewable energy projects. "All projects have to verifiability reduce greenhouse gas emissions according to international Kyoto protocol ... or they must be Green-e certified," Sustainable Travel's site states. "Emission reductions represent a physical reduction or avoidance of emissions over what would have otherwise occurred."   

Sustainable Travel president Brian Mullis told Green Wombat that the cost of the offset fee Continental customers will pay is still being calculated. "The greenhouse gas emission calculations associated with Continental Airlines' client's flights will be based on the company's fuel-efficient aircraft," he says. "Taking this approach will translate into savings on the cost of the offsets since Continental fleet generates less greenhouse gas emissions than its competitor's fleets."

For the sake of comparison, carbon credit company TerraPass charges about $10 to offset a round trip San Francisco-New York trip.

Continental execs stress the program isn't just another green marketing gimmick and that the airline has reduced its own greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent over the past decade by changing its operations and using electric-powered ground equipment. The airline also has placed in order for 25 of Boeing's  (BA) new energy efficient 787 Dreamliner jet. Whether United (UAUA) will roll out a Green Carpet Club and whether American (AMR) and other U.S. airlines follows Continental's lead remains to be seen. But with the European Union proposing to impose greenhouse gas emissions limits on airlines flying to the Continent, they will have to find one way or another to deal with air travel's contribution to global warming.

JavaOne's Eco Cred

photo: celeste1992

These days you can't put on a conference without the obligatory nod toward carbon neutrality -  "conference-goers' business-class travel, town cars, bar bills and gratuitous swag will be offset by the planting of a forest in Botswana." So when the email with the subject line  "2007 JavaOne Conference Gets Greener With Significant Efforts To Conserve, Recycle and Reuse" popped up on the BlackBerry, Green Wombat's eyes glazed over just like they did back in '99 when a chirpy PR person would call with news of the the latest $10 million round for the latest pets.com clone. But when the wombat got off deadline, a closer look at Sun Microsystems (SUNW) efforts to green up its annual JavaOne software confab now underway in San Francisco proved a bit of an eye-opener. Sun isn't trying to carbon-neutralize the geek fest. It's simply taking common-sense measures to reduce the environmental impact of such events. But the numbers are striking and serve as reminder that changing little things can have a big impact. For instance, Sun says that instead of inundating attendees with the usual paper blizzard, it did all its promotion of the event online. Not a radical move these days but one that the company claims will save 4.6 tons of paper (sparing 111 trees), lower greenhouse gas emissions by an equivalent of 13 tons, cut solid waste by 5.1 tons and reduce wastewater by nearly 79,000 gallons. Now take online all the brochures, factsheets and other paper handed out by exhibitors and those numbers would skyrocket.  Sun also touts its "Bike to JavaOne" initiative and its swag bag containing an "organic T-Shirt, note pad made from recycled paper and printed with soy ink."  Better yet, why not dispense with the goodie bag - and backpacks - all together next year. Unless you're an uber-geek, most of them will end up in a landfill before the 2008 JavaOne rolls around. (backpack photo: kasiat)

Yahoo Goes Carbon Neutral

Largely overlooked in the predictable media hullabaloo over Yahoo's (YHOO) not-so-hot quarterly earnings Tuesday was the announcement that the Internet giant will neutralize its greenhouse gas emissions by New Year's Eve. Yeah, tell me something new, you might well say, now that just about every company save ExxonMobil is joining the carbon-neutral brigade. But there are a few things about Yahoo's approach worth noting - and emulating. For one thing, the company is not greenwashing away eco-guilt by just writing a check to offset CO2 produced by its server farms and sprawling headquarters. "We know carbon neutrality isn’t without controversy," wrote Yahoo co-founder David Filo on his blog yesterday. "And it’s honestly deserved if companies and individuals don’t first make an effort to find direct ways to reduce their impact. We’ll continue to be vigilant about cutting ours, looking for creative ways to power our facilities, encourage even more employees to seek alternative commutes, and generally inspire Yahoos around the world to think differently about their energy use."  First, Yahoo is hiring an outside auditor to calculate its "carbon footprint" to gauge its contribution to global warming. Commuting is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Silicon Valley and Yahoo already offers programs designed to get employees out of their cars - from Wi-Fi-equipped biodiesel shuttle buses to bike lockers and public transit subsidies. The Sunnyvale company also has implemented various energy efficiency and recycling initiatives. But to go completely carbon neutral, Yahoo will finance renewable energy projects, and it's being upfront about how it will do that: The company will invest only in programs that produce direct and measurable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions; those results will be verified by an outside auditor; and the company will only support projects that result in additional C02 reductions that would not have otherwise happened.

Which brings Green Wombat to another issue in the carbon neutral debate: transparency. Yahoo's decision to lay out its thinking, criteria and plan of action will help give credibility to corporate carbon campaigns and put questionable carbon credit middlemen and their clients on notice. The company is also enhancing is green cred by using Web 2.0 to involve Yahoo users and crowdsource them for ideas it can adopt to fight global warming. Yesterday, Filo went on Yahoo Answers and threw out to the masses the question, "How should Yahoo go carbon neutral?" As I write this, 204 people have posted replies. And in contrast to the smart-ass postings that often appear on Yahoo Answers, many gave Filo thoughtful and potentially useful proposals.

Rival Google (GOOG) also has committed itself to take the green path by installing a massive solar array on its headquarters buildings, subsidizing employee purchases of fuel-efficient cars, etc. So who knows - maybe it won't be too far down the road when analysts on a quarterly earnings call ask about a company's greenhouse gas emissions, and Wall Street whacks its share price when the numbers go up, not down.