Computer maker Dell has claimed it is now a carbon neutral company.

It also reckons it’s the greenest technology firm on the planet (reader’s competition: spot the oxymoron and win a Madagascan tree).

Boss Michael Dell has been pushing the green agenda for some time now. In September last year he announced a series of programmes to shrink the company's carbon footprint and offset its greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2008.

Yesterday the firm claimed to have beaten that target five months ahead of schedule, but how so?

Apparently, it met its goal early by “implementing an aggressive global energy-efficiency campaign and increasing purchases of green power, verified emission reductions and renewable energy certificates”.

Dell also threw in some stats to help bolster its carbon neutral claim. Its annual investment in green leccy from utility energy guzzlers providers – including wind, solar and methane gas capture – has shot up since 2004 from 12 million kWh to 116 million kWh today. That’s an increase of 870 per cent, eco-pickers. Then there’s Dell’s global HQ campus that is now powered 100 per cent by green energy.

Mickey boy thanked all his troops for their huge effort in making Dell so darned eco-friendly, saying: “As always, our work is only getting started and this has never been more true than our focus on green.”

For once, he doesn’t even mean the colour of money. Nope, it’s all about hugging trees these days in good old Round Rock.

Dell’s also throwing cash at wind power in the US, China and India – regions where it has rather large data centre footprints. Pumping out Web 2.0 apps via the power of wind will help the vendor avoid producing 400,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions, it claimed.

Oh, and the company’s even saving moola too. It’s kept a somewhat paltry $3m in the piggy bank annually from its efforts. We say that's enough cash to buy all Dell employees a well-earned shot of wheatgrass apiece. The lucky, lucky lot. ®

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