Apple claimed in a recent series of commercials to have "the world's greenest family of notebooks".  While its claims of superiority over other OEMs, many who have similar designs, Apple has made some key improvements.  It has eliminated brominated and chlorinated flame retardants and other halogen and plastic products from its laptop line.  It has also cut down on power consumption, thanks in part to adopting cutting-edge Intel processors.  Even Greenpeace, not known for pulling punches, said that Apple had come a long way, though it ultimately deemed that the company had not come far enough.

However, those improvements weren't good enough for Dell, which blasted Apple last week in a harshly worded blog post.  The blog by Dell VP of Communities & Conversations Bob Pearson says of Apple's green efforts, "Apple hasn’t stated any goals, just made claims, which as far as we can tell, are not accurate."

Mr. Pearson scolds Apple for failing to try to achieve carbon neutrality, something he brags that Dell is already doing.  He also chides Apple for failing to offer sufficient recycling programs.  He continues his roast of Apple stating:

We don’t recall Apple joining the conversation about the environment, either via key conferences or the blogosphere or via reporter meetings…Don’t skip this step and go right to ads that may not even be truthful…We wish Apple would be more bold in making a difference rather than making ads. If they do both, then fantastic, run all the ads you want.

Unfortunately for Dell, its tough talk drew The Wall Street Journal to investigate the company's own environmental claims in depth only to find that Dell itself may be equally, if not more un-green. 

While Apple may claim to have the greenest notebooks, Dell claims to be "the greenest technology company on the planet" and says it has been carbon neutral since the summer.  Not so, says The Wall Street Journal.  It points out that the company's carbon footprint is a self determined metric, with no agreement upon standard.  Thus Dell arbitrarily picked its carbon footprint to encompass its boilers and company-owned cars, its buildings' electricity use, and its employees' business air travel.

As the report points out, Dell claiming carbon neutrality is specious at best as the carbon emissions generated from the sources cited are just a drop in the bucket compared to Dell-related emissions from the oil used by Dell's suppliers to make its computer parts, the diesel and jet fuel used to ship those computers around the world, or the coal-fired electricity used to run them.  In an interview Dell officials perhaps unintentionally acknowledged this stating that the real footprint from these sources is 10 times the size of the Dell-selected footprint.

Thus Dell is really only 5 percent carbon neutral, the report concludes.  Additionally of the carbon footprint it is cutting, most of its "cuts" come from purchasing carbon credits, a questionable practice.  Carbon credits consist of a company buying certified credits which amount to investment in green efforts such as alternative energy or tree planting.  However, many skeptics have pointed out that many of these efforts would continue even without the carbon credits, negating any real change in carbon caused by purchasing credits.

Dane Parker, Dell's director of environment, health and safety, has acknowledged that his company's claims are a bit unbelievable.  He states, "There are skeptics of carbon neutrality who will say, 'That's kind of bogus.'  Instead of using that as an excuse for inaction, we've said, 'There's a lot you can do.'"

Some advocates of carbon credits, like Bill Burtis, spokesman for Clean Air-Cool Planet, a Portsmouth, N.H.-based nonprofit group that advises companies on how to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions defend Dell's claims.  He says Dell is "going farther than most corporations" to be environmentally responsible.

Ultimately, though a careful examination of Dell's own lofty claims reveals significant cause for doubt.  The irony, though, is that few would have questioned its greenness, outside of environmental advocacy groups, had it not gone around challenging its competitor’s greenness.