Corporate Battle: Who is Greener...Dell or Apple?

Following our recent webinar about Corporate Social Responsibility, I thought it would be a good idea to start taking a closer look at how large, Fortune 500 companies implement their environmental, social responsibility, and sustainable business strategies.

The first topic I wanted to focus on is in regards to ways we can separate marketing hype from reality. We have mentioned in previous posts that greenwashing, or the use of deceptive green marketing practices, is an ongoing concern of all consumers. We want to buy environmentally safe products that were produced responsibly, will use less energy, and make less of an impact throughout the product's entire life cycle. Unfortunately, as more emphasis is placed on the environment and the popularity of green marketing rises it is getting harder to make sense of all of the advertising claims made by leading companies who say they are going green...Are they being honest or are they merely stretching the truth?

As I started to review this topic, I quickly discovered that this is not only a concern of consumers, but it looks like companies in similar industries are making an effort to police each other. There are clearly selfish reasons for the companies to do this, but I thought it was interesting none-the-less. Currently, there seems to be a new debate hitting the web regarding Apple's new green marketing campaign for their line of Macbooks, which they claim are the "world's greenest". You can also see a video of their new commercial here. So the question is, are these claims legitimate? Are Apple's Macbooks really the greenest laptops in the market and what exactly does it mean to be green, in their opinion?

Given a recent blog post by Dell Computer's Bob Pearson, VP—Communities & Conversations, it seems like they feel the new ad campaign is misleading or at least not up to the standards Dell has set for itself with regards to environmental responsibility. This post has generated both positive and negative responses from readers, but Bob specifically suggests three points for us all to consider:

• First, in his opinion Apple is not part of the conversation. They apparently don't have a blog, like the one powered by Dell, they don't let their employees comment in a public forum, and they generally just don't engage the environmental community about this very important topic. I don't think that a lack of communicating necessarily means that a company isn't trying to protect the environment, but it does make it harder for all of us, and in this case Bob from Dell, to understand exactly what Apple is doing to become more eco-friendly.
  
• Second, he mentions that Apple hasn't set any Public goals about their environmental practices such as recycling or reducing harmful chemicals from their products, but they are instead simply making bold claims about the "greenness" of their products.
  
• Lastly, he mentions that Dell is focused on action, not rhetoric. Dell has apparently become carbon neutral this year and ahead of schedule. They also offer free recycling for old computers and sell refurbished computers through their site. Dell even debuted their own "green pc" earlier this year. I wonder if he feels that this new pc is the world's greenest?
  

So these are some of the things Dell has to say about Apple's, and their own, environmental initiatives, but what does Apple have to say? Well, perhaps in light of this recent dust up over their new ad campaign, lack of messaging to the green community about their efforts, or the appearance that they are falling behind their competitors it looks like Steve Jobs has issued his own letter to environmental conscious consumers. In this letter Steve first highlights that Apple might not have the best environmental image to both consumers and shareholders and that Apple has purposefully never been vocal about future plans. He goes on to say that his goal is to change these facts moving forward and hopefully allow consumers to better understand what their current accomplishments are and what the future may hold. It is a good read and it does put Apple in a better light, in my opinion.

Now that we have heard from each company regarding their efforts to build sustainable businesses and products let's look at some independent sources. One of my favorite organizations is called ClimateCounts.org and they have already rated these two companies as well as others in the same industry:

• Dell - It appears that Dell has received a score of 49 out of 100. It looks like they scored best in their overall transparency, or public reporting, of their green initiatives meaning Dell is doing a relatively good job of communicating their efforts. They scored lowest, however, in the "Policy Stance" category receiving a score of 1 out of 10. I guess Dell doesn't want the government mandating goals, but instead would like to leave it up to each company to develop their own initiatives.
• Apple - On the other hand, it looks like Apple has scored an 11 out of 100 overall, which is the lowest of all the Electronics companies reviewed by ClimateCounts.org. They received two scores of zero in the categories of "Review" and "Policy Stance". The company scored best in the "Reduce" category showing that they have made some effort in reducing their overall impact on the environment. This is a poor score and it shows that Apple does have a long way to go in developing and communicating their plans to help keep the environment safe while still conducting business profitably.
  
• Of the 12 Electronics companies reviewed by ClimateCounts.org, Apple and Dell surprisingly received the two lowest scores. HP, Canon, Sony, IBM, etc. all received higher scores with IBM leading the pack with an impressive score of 77 out of 100.
  

So what do you think; does either company have the right to claim "green" superiority over the other? Are both companies engaging in a certain level of greenwashing and do these ads affect the way you make your purchasing decisions?