Materiality Analysis for Corporate Responsibility

Why Materiality Matters

Determining which issues to include in our annual Corporate Responsibility Report and on our Website is a key step in communicating our corporate responsibility strategy and performance. Our corporate responsibility team leads this process by analyzing potential topics to select those that are material to us and to our key stakeholders.

We follow the definition of materiality as set forth by the Global Reporting Initiative. Dell strives to address topics that reflect our significant economic, environmental and social impacts or that would influence the assessments and decisions of our stakeholders.

Conducting a materiality analysis is essential as we outline significant content for each report. Repeating this process annually enables us to focus our reports on the current concerns of stakeholders, the most critical societal needs, and our evolving sustainability and business strategies.
Step One — Identify Issues

The Dell corporate responsibility team begins by considering inputs from a broad range of stakeholders and sources. This starting point springs from one of our core values: considering the concerns of those whose lives we touch. Michael Dell founded his business with an intense focus on customers — listening and responding to their needs and desires in the spirit of collaboration. That orientation continues today as we maintain a rich, ongoing dialogue with our customers and other stakeholders. We conduct meaningful conversations, from which we gain insights that guide our strategy.

The groups and individuals with whom we interact are broad and diverse. Through constructive relationships, we engage in a respectful exchange of ideas with government agencies, nongovernment organizations, donation partners, socially responsible investors, trade associations, organized labor, team members, shareholders, customers, partners and the communities in which we operate. See our list of stakeholders and our stakeholder philosophy.

This exchange of ideas keeps us informed of changes in stakeholder concerns. We’ve recently noted that sustainability is becoming a higher priority for many of our customers, particularly large enterprise and public customers. As they pursue their own sustainability objectives and programs, these customers are more carefully evaluating vendors’ sustainability programs and policies as part of their procurement process. We welcome this emphasis that aligns with our own sustainability strategy, and we’re fully committed to be a valuable asset to our customers as they strive to achieve their sustainability goals.

Dell uses a variety of forums and venues to maintain contact with various groups. We interact with our stakeholders through our participation in conference calls, in-person engagements at conferences, through education opportunities such as speaking on panels or through stakeholder visits. We hold topic-specific workshops, such as the one in Paris in October 2010 for conflict minerals or the one in San Francisco in October 2011 on the shift in our sustainability strategy. Dell is using social media such as Twitter to offer another avenue of communication, and through our Customer Advisory Panel (CAP) Days, we meet face to face with our most vocal customers and bloggers who are savvy in social media. For the first time ever, we will be visiting multiple Socially Responsible Investors (SRIs) when we do our SRI Road Show. 

1. We consider societal expectations and values as expressed through the Global Reporting Initiative, Carbon Disclosure Project and other international standards and frameworks.
2. Dell gathers and evaluates the concerns expressed by our stakeholders through the formal and informal means described above.
3. These issues are then viewed through the lens of several internal criteria. Dell chooses to focus on those issues that are most relevant to our particular industry, such as conflict minerals, hazardous electronic waste (e-waste), supplier responsibility, sourcing and manufacturing. Issues are also screened for their relevance to our corporate mission of delivering technology solutions that enable people everywhere to grow and thrive. Our reporting centers on those topics and performance indicators that are most material to our sustainability and business strategies.

Our annual corporate responsibility reports represent a snapshot in time by capturing and highlighting our strategy and performance during a particular fiscal year. Our reports present a broad overview of our progress toward goals, enabling readers to quickly evaluate key performance indicators.

These reports are augmented by detailed content on dell.com that provides extensive material, including real-time data, case studies, policies, interactive tools, opportunities for feedback and learning resources. This content offers a high level of transparency and enables stakeholders to delve deeper into their particular areas of interest.