Dell has made significant progress towards its 2020 environmental goals after wider adoption of energy efficiency measures and renewables saw the company’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fall.
In the latest update of Dell’s ‘2020 Legacy of Good’ plan, the IT giant revealed that in the company’s last financial year it was able to decrease the GHG emissions of facilities and logistics operations by 15.9% compared to FY 2015.
This latest achievement is a combined emissions reduction of 21.8% since the company’s baseline year of FY 2013, meaning it is almost halfway towards the 2020 target of a 50% reduction.
Dell says it has achieved this through a strategy prioritising greater levels of energy efficiency across its operations, which it claims is the most cost effective means of reducing both overall electricity use and emissions.
To this end, the company has reduced its overall electricity consumption by 22GWh compared to the previous year, having used just over 652GWh in FY 2016. This is a reduction of 28GWh since 2013, suggesting the company has ramped up its energy saving activities substantially in the last year.
The report attributes most of the decrease in facility-based emissions to energy efficiency improvements as well as business efficiency improvements such as its flexible work programmes, which allow staff to work remotely and at variable hours.
The company’s Connected Workplace scheme, which was piloted in America this year allowing additional features like part time working, job sharing and a compressed working weeks, reportedly helped avoid 617 million round trips, reducing the commuting footprint by 6.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e).
While the measures helped to avoid or minimise energy use and subsequent emissions, Dell also increased the proportion of its energy derived from renewable sources. In FY 2016, over 41% of its purchased electricity was generated from clean energy sources – an increase of 2.7% from the previous year.
The company says this performance means it is well on track to achieve its target of sourcing at least half of energy from renewables by the end of the decade, which it plans to reach through a combination of increased renewable energy in purchase contracts and on site generation.
Dell has also reduced the average energy intensity of its product portfolio by 16% based on delivered capabilities, signifying a drop of 42.8% since the baseline FY 2012. This measurement is based on the expected lifetime energy consumption of the Dell products sold during the reporting period and the expected capability being delivered in those products.
