Dell vs. Apple on greening

Dominant PC builder Dell has sharply criticized Apple for its environmental claims, a promotional blog post reveals. The company's community VP, Bob Pearson, has specifically taken aim at a recent MacBook ad, which suggests that the new unibody systems are the "greenest" notebooks on the market. Apple is only making broad claims without providing any long-term plans or even facts to back them up, says Pearson.

Dell's Latitude E-series notebooks, for instance, are like MacBooks claimed to be energy-efficient, and have reduced levels of mercury, PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Although Pearson does not address any recyclable materials in Dell systems -- something touted in the Apple ad-- the executive argues that the E-series may in fact be more environmentally friendly than the new MacBooks, whereas Apple has allegedly made only vague statements.

Pearson further describes Dell has having achieved carbon neutrality for its operations in August, started worldwide free recycling, and announced that it will drop 20 million pounds of shipping materials in the near future. The executive is also critical of what he calls a lack of openness about Apple environmental policies, whether in terms of a lack of blogging or discussion at conferences. Apple employees are not even allowed to run their own blogs, Pearson notes.

Dell's criticism has itself been challenged however, with commenters pointing out that Apple has made repeated statements about environmental details, and in fact has posted an official page listing some plans and existing changes. Publicity has also been derived through Greenpeace, which has taken Apple to task and forced policy alteration; even this is failing to give Apple credit, according to BusinessWeek, which contends that Greenpeace has been inaccurately rating Apple in relation to other tech businesses.

by MacNN Staff