Michael Dell of Dell Computers has announced the company will plant a tree for each PC or notebook sold to offset the carbon impact of electricity required to power their systems.
The ‘Plant a Tree for Me’ carbon-neutral initiative is a partnership between Dell and The Conservation Fund and Carbondfung.org. A customer donation of $2 for a notebook and $6 for a desktop will go towards planting trees in sustainably managed forests. Dell says this will offset the equivalent emissions resulting from the production of electricity used during the average three-year use of a computer.
The program is already up and running in the US and will be available to global consumers in April.
Dell, which has received praise from environmental groups such as Greenpeace, also offers a product recycling program for consumers. The company has a goal to recover 125 million kilograms of product from customers by 2009.
“It is our hope that other companies in our industry will join us to improve the environment that we all share,” Michael Dell said.
