Dell will programme its technology to create a ‘legacy of good’

Dell has raised the bar in corporate sustainability with its new 2020 Legacy of Good Plan that sets out an aspirational goal of measuring the ripple effect of its technology among customers worldwide.


The new vision extends well beyond what Dell can do alone and will require collaboration and partnership, among both individuals and organisations.

The self-termed 10×20 goal aims to generate 10 times more benefit through Dell’s technology than it takes to make and use it.

According to Dell’s CEO Michael Dell, it is a “dramatic” shift for the company and will seek to dovetail both sustainable and social values by capturing the innovative ways customers are using Dell technology to do “good in the world”.

“That could mean dramatically reducing carbon emissions with our cloud solutions, or predicting and guarding against severe weather patterns with our high-performance computing capabilities, or delivering solar-powered classrooms to remote regions of the world with our energy-efficient virtual desktops,” he said.

Dell’s legacy plan sets out some of the key steps and strategies for action. In order to measure the environmental and social impacts of its technology, the company will be forging closer relationships with its customers, suppliers, consultants and industry partners to collect data which will be used as a basis to build the models and methodology required.

Dell will measure its own end to end footprint using industry standard
approaches and compare that footprint to the social and environmental benefits of both Dell-developed solutions, solutions jointly developed and marketed by Dell and one or more partners, and customer-developed solutions enabled by Dell products and technology.

The company is also looking to recycle more technology as part of this strategy. On the waste front it wants to ensure that 90% of waste generated in Dell-operated buildings is diverted from landfill and ensure that 100% of product packaging is sourced from sustainable materials by 2020.

It is also looking to reduce water use in water stressed regions by 20% during the same timeframe, and reduce the energy is intensity of its product portfolio by 80%.

Maxine Perella

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