Trees-for-PCs: Dell brings Carbon Fund promo to NZ
Dell reps say the company will bring its Carbon Fund programme to New Zealand around April. Already running in the US, the plan sees Dell donate $US6 for every desktop PC you buy, or $US2 for every notebook. The Carbon Fund, in turn, puts the money from Dell (and other supporters) toward its tree planting schemes. The idea is your six bucks buys you enough tree to soak up the greenhouse gas-creating carbon emitted by your PC during its lifetime.
Incidentally, the Carbon Fund doesn't operate in New Zealand, or any country at similar latitude, because apparently Kiwi trees are too reflective. Instead it concentrates its planting around the equator, so cash from Dell's New Zealand customers will get diverted to forests in that region.
Three Dell staff I met with in Sydney last week all seemed very green-friendly. Obviously, as more and more big companies start to put environmental provisions in their PC tendors, and consumers get wise to saving the planet, going green makes increasing market sense. But still, all had seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, and did seem to genuinely get it (not that everybody's wearing socks and sandals. Returning CEO Michael Dell was a prolific donor to George Bush's fight against Gore, and his subsequent re-election effort).
If you're concerned about the planet - or just want to save yourself a couple of bucks - the best thing you can do is trade in your CRT for a flat panel LCD display (or better, a notebook). CRTs account for most of a desktop PC's power consumption.
Unfortunately, PCs themselves contain a stew of noxious chemicals on their circuit boards, including mercury and cadmium. See Geoff Palmer's Consumer Watch column in PC World March (on newsstands now and until March 31) for the full ugly run down - plus some details on local recycling plans now in place by Dell, HP, Telecom, Vodafone and others (and it's good they're taking some initiative, because NZ is one of an increasing minority of Western countries with no PC disposal regulations).
Further reading:
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