Green Marketing: Dell
As “going green” becomes the coolest fad (read: socially responsible thing to do) more and more companies are starting to act. Dell recently launched their Plant a tree for me program in association with The Conservation Fund and carbonfund.org.
For this reason I am covering the Dell initiative as well as introducing a new topic on this blog called “Green Marketing”. Have another company that is going green and talking about it? Let me know.
Dell, in partnership with The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org, has launched ‘Plant a Tree for Me,’ a program that makes it easy and affordable for individuals, corporations or even entire communities to “go zero” by measuring and then offsetting their carbon emissions associated with the electricity generated to power an extended portfolio of IT products – simply by planting trees. Additionally, participants can offset the estimated total one-year carbon impact of an average American citizen by donating $99 to the program.
I am not sure what my carbon impact is for the year but with all the recent news and focus on the environment and global warming I have started to wonder more. I have always been in support of conserving energy, and I would donate to this program. I think one of the major reasons this will work is the ability for people to share their deed with others via the .pdf certificate making it viral, the easiness of completing the task at purchase time, and finally the forward thinking folks that make up most of the IT community.
The current rates are $2.00 to offset a laptop and $6.00 to offset a desktop. I am not sure of the carbon math behind these numbers but it seems like a great idea.
Will this help Dell sell more computers? I dont know. The real question should be “Is this the right thing to do?” and the answer is unequivocally yes. As with most marketing initiatives, the company that is doing the right thing with the best product sells more. In this case, that company appears to be Dell.
[tags] Dell, plant a tree for me, carbon neutral, carbon emissions, marketing, green marketing [/tags]