Green computing is a hot topic, but of four mid-sized South African companies surveyed, we were surprised to find that 75% had no green computing framework at all. The fourth company’s representative was completely serious when he cited “plants in the office” and “no smoking signs” as foremost in their environmental policy. Fortunately, it seems that the bigger brands have made important strides toward decreasing emissions, recycling redundant hardware and reducing the levels of toxic materials needed for various components. The industry itself has formed an organisation called The Green Grid which describes itself as “a global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems”. Of the ten big computing names that form the board of The Green Grid, Dell seems to have lurched ahead in its efforts to be the greenest technology company on Earth by being first to implement a global consumer recycling programme in 2006 and first to achieve carbon neutrality in 2008.

Environmental watchdog Greenpeace has welcomed Dell’s committment to eliminate key hazardous chemicals from its PCs, laptops and other products, and is naming and shaming others not following suit. It has placed Motorola at the other end of the spectrum of its industry ranking for being the only one of the top five mobile manufacturers to have failed to commit to removing toxic components from its products.