Dell, HP, IBM Are the Greenest Companies

Is anyone else a surprised that Dell is ranked first?

A company that tells you to replace your printer to get new ink instead of refilling/replacing the ink cartrage is the greenest? How can that be?

Well, since Dell is selling less and less computer, they ARE reducing the carbon footprint.

Steve Jobs rebuttal:
You're recycling wrong!

Dell was actually well ahead of the curve. The company made its fortune on supply chain optimization -- rather than design or innovation -- which enabled it to sell PCs direct to customer for less than, say, HP or Gateway back in the day. Dell essentially figured out that using cheaper, recycled material for packaging could reduce costs even further. So it wasn't a matter of Michael Dell declaring he wanted to save the environment -- far from it. It was more a matter of the company figuring out ways to make and ship its products cheaper through "green" methods.

Ranking 500 companies objectively would take a lot of money and resources. Did Newsweek visit each office/plant sites to assess each one? What criteria did they used to rank? Over what period? Or let's just their word for it.

i dont believe this report until i see their procedure. How can a software company scores less than a company that sells hardware?

I can see why apple isn't at the top. They use way too much packaging for their products. Apple tends to package everything in their own box, so 1 iPod/iPad per box, which I have never seen a company produce so much cardboard.

I think there's a third reason tech companies are near the top. Most of them sell "green" products because it's a big selling point to consumers, and simultaneously most tech companies eat their own dog food to cut costs - inherently making them greener as the products get greener. It's a nice convenient circle.

According to wikipedia, General Electric made 12.4% of the wind turbines sold in the world in 2009 (beaten only by a Danish company with 12.5%). It's definitely a public traded company and one of the top 500 by market cap (LOL, it was #1 a few years ago and it's worth 6 times more than Dell today). Doesn't that make it "green" enough for Newsweek???

What about companies that make solar cells or electric vehicles?

How exactly can Google be 36th? When your primary business is based on a search engine and advertising, how can you not be green?

Suck it hypocritical elitist apple snobs!

@theoutbound

probably has something to do with the large large amounts of electricity your server farms are consuming, the kind of electricity data centers consume requires their own electrical grid, probably one of the key reasons Google decided to build their own wind farm

I think most of you missed the point of how this is rated. It is not rated on what product you produce but how you produce it. It is based on the processes and procedures such as if you have a recycling program or if you use recycled product and so on.

What a joke. Finding the cheapest place to be a polluter to manufacture products and then shipping said products around the globe doesnt make you "green".

Apple should be the less "green" company. Their product don't even have a replacable battery. Some of their desktop computers (iMacs) are so integrated that you need to replace the display when you change your computer. None of these are good for the environnement.

Seeing as most of the listed technology companies spend huge amounts on electricity, it's easy to see why they would want to go green to cut costs. It's also a lot easier to be green with electricity (solar panels, efficient and up to date hardware, software improvements) than actual manufacturers who have to do a lot of the dirty work, such as using lots of hazardous industrial chemicals that there isn't much room to be green with.

How can a company that makes the most unnatural product be green. Thank about what goes into a computer. Even worst, they make the product to be thrown away every couple years.

By the way, this green BS is for the ignorant (IMO).

Hi everyone -- Michelle at Dell here. Wanted to share Newsweek's write-up on Dell from the green rankings article. Might answer a few questions:

Dell has built its sustainability strategy over the years by setting a series of ambitious goals, several of which it has already met. In 2008, the company announced it would reduce its total emissions by 40 percent by 2015. It is well on the way to achieving that goal. Many of Dell's efforts are also focused on reducing the environmental impact of its products at all stages of their life cycles, from design to disposal. The company's laptops and desktops are now built to use 25 percent less energy than comparable systems made in 2005. That effort, among others, has saved its customers more than $5 billion in energy costs over the past few years. The company has also used 7.2 million pounds of post-consumer recycled plastic to build new computers--the equivalent of recycling 263 million water bottles. Dell also has one of the tech industry's most comprehensive recycling programs. The company takes back and recycles any of its products for free, and will also take back competitors' products at no cost with the purchase of new Dell computers or peripherals. Consumers can also mail back old equipment, Dell will pick up items at their homes, or they can drop them off at more than 2,000 Goodwill or 1,500 Staples locations. Based on their strong Environmental Impact score, Reputation score, and excellent Green Policies score, Dell was the No. 1 company in NEWSWEEK's 2010 Green Rankings.

my company is the greenest. i don't make anything

At least the earth can rest for a awhile.

The reported rankings are very inaccurate. Go read the original source for the true rankings. For example, Intel is at #4, IBM is at #5, Cisco is at #12, Adobe is at #16, AMD is at #17, Motorola is at #21, Microsoft is at #31, Yahoo! is at #69, Google is at #79, while Apple is at #133.

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