Reducing and Reporting Greenhouse Gas Emissions
If it can be measured, it can be improved. Tracking greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and setting a high bar for improvement shows that Dell takes the responsibility to help address climate change very seriously.
Reflecting that commitment, in 2007, we announced a goal to reduce our total direct and indirect emissions intensity by 15 percent by 2012, using FY08 as the base year. Intensity measures emissions against revenue.
How We Report Emissions
We estimate our GHG emissions using the international Greenhouse Gas Protocol and the Environmental Protection Agency Climate Leaders Greenhouse Gas Inventory Guidance. In addition to reporting on this website and in our annual corporate responsibility report, we report to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), an independent nonprofit holding the world's largest database of primary corporate climate change information.
We categorize our emissions as follows:
- Scope 1 emissions — direct emissions that we generate in our own operations as a result of fuel combustion and minor leakage from air-conditioning and refrigerant systems
- Scope 2 emissions — indirect emissions associated with the production of electricity that we purchase for use in our facilities
In addition, we calculate and report on one component of Scope 3 emissions — our business air travel emissions. As a general category, Scope 3 also includes indirect emissions such as those related to the transportation of products to customers and end-of-life product recovery.
Absolute Carbon Emissions
The chart above shows our estimated GHG emissions, broken down by scope, for FY09 through FY11. The Scope 2 category is broken down into total and net emissions to reflect that we get much of our electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind and the sun. We had an increase in FY11 due primarily to several acquisitions, including Perot Systems.
This chart shows our GHG emissions intensity from FY09 to FY11. Our carbon intensity remained flat from FY10 to FY11. There was a slight decrease in overall intensity, from 7.43 metric tons of GHG emissions per $1 million of revenue in FY10 to 7.14 in FY11. Net intensity is calculated as the total Scope 1 and 2 emissions, less emissions reduced through green electricity purchases, divided by annual revenue.) Since electricity use is the primary contributor to our GHG emissions, the most important action that we can take is to reduce the amount of energy we use.