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Renewable Cisco Gets Green Pats

Cisco Systems and Intel were among those feted at the annual National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference, held this week in Denver. Of these, special honors should go to Cisco for its emphasis on absolute reduction of greenhouse gases, rather than through offsets.

Both are making great strides, but Cisco has been the most vocal in the need to purchase and produce alternative energy.

In June 2008, Cisco set a goal of 25% reduction in absolute terms by 2012. Cisco's annual purchase in the United States of 378 million kilowatt-hours of green power -- supplied mainly from biomass, wind, solar, and small hydro sources -- represents nearly 44% of its total annual electricity use across its U.S. operations. Cisco says it plans to increase its green power purchase by 22 million kilowatt-hours in 2009, including various on-site renewable electric systems for its facilities.

Intel, for its part, purchases more than 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours a year of renewable energy certificates (RECs) generated from wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass sources. Also, it was noted, over the last six years Intel has invested more than $21 million toward more than 250 energy conservation projects that saved more than 500 million kilowatt-hours. In June, Intel spun off a company called SpectraWatt, which manufactures PV cells for solar panels, with $50 million in funding from Intel Capital and other investors.

Dell wasn't given an award at the conference, but instead moved up nine positions to No. 3 in the latest EPA Fortune 500 Green Power Challenge, just out today. Dell was ranked No. 12 in July. The results coincide with Dell's introduction today of a new line of OptiPlex commercial desktops and service offerings that it touts as more environmentally friendly.

They include the OptiPlex 960, which, Dell says, enables up to 43% less power consumption to reduce energy costs over previous generations of OptiPlex desktops; uses up to 89% recyclable packaging; and uses at least 10% post-consumer recycled plastic.

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