From the Chairman and CEO
I am pleased to introduce Dell’s Sustainability Report for our company’s fiscal year 2007. This report measures our progress towards instituting sustainable business practices, describes our challenges and sets goals for continued improvement.
We’ve titled this report Values in Action. Values inspire behaviors. And it’s our behaviors and actions we hope you will use to evaluate our company’s efforts. Judge us not by what we say, but by what you see us do. In this year’s report we’ve included perspectives from many of our stakeholders — environmentalists, investors, community members and suppliers. Their input remains vitally important in our efforts to create a sustainable business. Their voices help tell the Dell story.
We also celebrate our successes over the past year, including these important developments:
Global Recycling: In June of 2006, we committed to offering consumers free recycling for any Dell-branded product at any time anywhere in the world. I’m pleased to report that our teams had global recycling services in place by December 2006. I challenged the industry to join us in providing free recycling for every customer, with no exceptions. It’s the right thing for our customers and for our planet. As of this writing, we remain the only company in our industry that provides consumers free, global recycling without a purchase requirement. For details, see www.dell.com/recycling.
Design for Environment: We continue to make strides in the environmental design of our products. We now meet the requirements of the European Union’s Restriction on the use of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive globally. We updated our chemical use policy, committing to eliminating the use of brominated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride from product design by 2009. We made great strides in our Forest Products Stewardship program; our marketing publications use on average 50 percent recycled content paper, meeting our 2009 goals three years early.
Customer Ownership: In 2006, we addressed energy efficiency by announcing a plan to build systems that deliver the greatest performance per watt possible. Doing so will help our customers save money and help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We’re making early progress toward this goal. For example, our OptiPlex 745 uses up to 70 percent less energy than previous models when configured with a flat panel display. We also announced a new program in January 2007 called “Plant a Tree for Me.” The program takes donations from customers to plant trees to offset the carbon dioxide generated by the production of electricity used to power their computers. Plant a Tree for Me and programs like it allow Dell to leverage our direct relationships with customers and educate them about energy efficiency and climate change.
Diversity and Ethics: We received a number of recognitions this year for our efforts to create an inclusive workplace. We were honored to receive the Opportunity Award by the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the country’s highest award recognizing voluntary workplace diversity efforts among federal contractors. For the third year in a row, we received a score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index. Our extensive Ethics Day campaign included employee events at most of our facilities around the world to underscore the importance we place on conducting ourselves according to the highest ethical standards.
We have made progress, but we recognize we’re on a journey that doesn’t end. We will increase our engagement in the communities we call home around the world, and continue our efforts to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS. We will continue to work constructively with those in our global supply chain to drive our own high standards for workplace practices and safety, and continue to drive awareness of and adoption of the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct, sometimes called "The Code," or simply "EICC."
Over the course of the year, our commitment to corporate responsibility has deepened. Being responsible for our environment is part of the total customer experience that we provide and, as such, is integral to our success. We will continue to focus on our challenge to identify new viablematerials and further communicate our ethical sourcing standards.
I am personally committed to our company’s sustainability journey. My passion stems not only from the business benefits of leading in this area, but also from my personal values and concern for future generations. So please, carefully read our report. See the progress we made toward our goals. Judge us by our actions; tell us how we are doing.
Michael Dell
