How Dell Gives Packaging a Sustainable Makeover

The attitude of many companies is changing when it comes to prioritizing “green” initiatives and focusing attention on sustainability in the supply chain. The effects of climate change are real, the consequences are serious, and businesses are recognizing ways in which they can help by reducing their carbon footprint.

At the same time, companies are striving to make their supply chains more efficient, and environmental efforts can prove key to increasing productivity. Sourcing materials, production, travel and waste management should all work in tandem with a company’s broader green initiatives to deliver the most effective results.

With the economic downturn, one might assume that companies would abandon their green initiatives in favor of cheaper alternatives but a PwC report released earlier this year, Sustainable Packaging: Myth or Reality, discovered quite the opposite. It found that sustainability investment has increased rather than decreased during the economic downturn, as companies are paying greater attention to the effective use of resources. Companies are more conscious of finding ways to make every aspect of their business more efficient from production to sourcing materials.

Packaging is a key part of this process. Any company which supplies physical equipment needs to consider packaging, and the efficiencies packaging can provide. It is now more feasible than ever to create packaging that is beneficial to the environment while also being valuable from a business perspective. Businesses can minimize the impact of business operations, while at the same time create new possibilities for customers to reduce their environmental impact.

Many different materials can be used as green alternatives to traditional packaging. One example of a natural material is bamboo, which is a rapidly renewable member of the grass family with tremendous tensile strength that serves as a great alternative to more commonly used molded paper pulp, foams and corrugate. In addition to being highly sustainable, bamboo also helps promote healthy soil and, when harvested correctly, doesn’t require replanting, making it an ideal renewable resource. Also, bamboo is the fastest-growing woody plant in the world and can grow up to 24 inches per day, so the material is practically always readily available, which is vital for large companies which often need substantial amounts of packaging.

Sustainability can also be built into all processes associated with the production of the bamboo. In our own experience for example, after it is harvested, the bamboo is mechanically pulped at a nearby facility. During this process, 70 percent of the water is reclaimed and used in the process (the other 30 percent is lost to vaporization). Nothing is poured out, and no toxic chemicals are used. If it’s sunny, the pulp is dried by the sun, reducing electricity use.

Another rather unusual source of a highly durable packaging solution is the humble and unassuming mushroom, which we at Dell are currently piloting as a packaging material for our servers. The mushroom bioscience is based on using common agricultural waste products: cotton hulls, rice hulls or wheat chaff are placed in a mold and injected with mushroom spawn. Five to ten days later, the mushroom root structure completes its growth, having used the energy residing in the sugars and carbohydrates of the agricultural waste instead of external energy sources such as petroleum. The final product looks and acts like Styrofoam, only this is organic, biodegradable and can be used as compost or mulch, which makes for easier and more environmentally-friendly disposal. In addition, this material is also surprisingly durable and tough.

More common alternative solutions can kickstart green packaging in your organization. Other options include: high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which is made using recycled-content plastics derived from recycled milk cartons and detergent bottles; molded paper pulp; lightweight air cushions that can be dramatically minimized before disposal. The alternatives are evolving practically every day.

The case of sourcing materials responsibly has become equally important when it comes to manufacturing your packaging. Every step of your packaging process presents an opportunity to minimize your carbon footprint. Sourcing materials locally and packaging locally by creating an “in-region” solution means that you cut down on the carbon you would emit if you were sending transporting materials back and forth over long distances. This could help you save on the overall costs of shipping materials, while also helping reduce carbon emissions in the long run.

Customers, governments and other stakeholders are paying more attention than ever to the sustainability and efficiency of the supply chain, and packaging is a pivotal part of this. Not only do these new alternatives offer the chance to reduce your carbon footprint but they can also contribute to substantial savings. Dell’s packaging strategy has eliminated 20 million pounds of packaging between 2008 and 2012 and also cut costs by more than $18 million, demonstrating that there are real and tangible benefits. With the rapid development of technology and alternative packaging solutions being studied constantly, these benefits have the potential to be far greater in the future for anyone who chooses to adopt a sustainable approach to packaging.

Peterson, a 2010 Black Hills High School graduate, for a time was a player without a home position. A fullback? No. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he didn’t fit the frame. Outside linebacker? Not quite. Inside linebacker? Bingo.

After two seasons marred by injuries and adjusting from offense to defense, Peterson was a cornerstone of the Midshipmen’s defense in 2012 as a junior — a season filled with everything from playing No. 1-ranked Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland, to helping Navy win the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, to playing in a bowl game televised on ESPN. It’s a journey Peterson described as “rewarding.”

Peterson, a 2010 Black Hills High School graduate, for a time was a player without a home position. A fullback? No. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, he didn’t fit the frame. Outside linebacker? Not quite. Inside linebacker? Bingo.

After two seasons marred by injuries and adjusting from offense to defense, Peterson was a cornerstone of the Midshipmen’s defense in 2012 as a junior — a season filled with everything from playing No. 1-ranked Notre Dame in Dublin, Ireland, to helping Navy win the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy, to playing in a bowl game televised on ESPN. It’s a journey Peterson described as “rewarding.”

Libraries to try affairs e-books directly

At a contempo chargeless e-reader training affair at the San Francisco Accessible Library, 72-year-old Jane Marquis searched the library’s website after success for an e-book of “Gone Girl,” a abstruseness atypical that has topped the acknowledged fiction lists this summer.

“I’m abiding it’ll be on there anon because it’s one of the accepted ones,” Marquis said.

But accepted appeal isn’t chargeless which e-books San Francisco or libraries beyond the nation can action their patrons. With a lot of of the bigger publishers abnegation to advertise e-books to vendors that act as middlemen amid publishers and libraries, San Francisco and added California libraries are advancing to try something new in their efforts to aggrandize their agenda collections – affairs e-books anon from abate publishers.

Starting this fall, the 220-member library accommodating Califa Library Group will activate rolling out a $325,000 activity with the ambition of affairs from the abate publishing companies bags of e-books that the libraries will own forever. San Francisco and a lot of added libraries charter their accumulating through OverDrive, a agenda administration company.

“With the vendors, their action is to accomplish money, so we’re lining their pockets and we accept no adaptability or ownership,” said Heather Teysko, administrator of development and addition at Califa.

Teysko said about 50 publishers, mostly independent, accept apparent absorption so far. The activity will be piloted in the Contra Costa County Library arrangement aboriginal and should be implemented in San Francisco by February or March, she said.

Currently, e-books accomplish up about 4 percent of the absolute accumulating at the San Francisco Accessible Library, but that amount is acceleration anniversary year, said library Collections and Technical Casework Chief Laura Lent. But from July 2010 to July 2011, concrete apportionment at the library alone for the aboriginal time in 13 years, from 10.8 actor to 10.7 million. Those numbers rebounded hardly endure year, but the trend is clear: Book is no best the alone bold in town.

“We’re spending about 20 percent of our collections account on all kinds of e-resources,” Lent said. “I anticipate both e-books and book are traveling to coexist for as far into the approaching as we can imagine.” San Francisco has a collections account of $1.85 million, up from $1.4 actor endure year.

San Francisco is aswell introducing a new bell-ringer in October to attempt with OverDrive. Baker & Taylor, the arch supplier of book books to libraries, will add 6,000 e-books to the library’s collection, specializing in blush agreeable and e-books for the visually impaired.

Nearly bisected of e-book readers surveyed by the Pew Research Center this year did not apperceive whether their library offered e-books, and neither did 58 percent of all library cardholders. Marquis was in the aphotic until a acquaintance let her apperceive afresh that she could use her home computer to go assimilate the library’s website and borrow e-books for chargeless on the Kindle she accustomed as a allowance from her granddaughter two years ago. Having spent hundreds of dollars through Amazon to acquirement 94 e-books for her device, she said she could use a spending break.

The city-limits abutting addition 70 library systems in June in a letter ambitious bigger agenda casework for their patrons. Simon & Schuster and Macmillan action about none of their e-books to libraries, while Hachette Book Group and Penguin Group (USA) accomplish alone aback titles available.

“Libraries accept a albatross to action for the accessible and ensure that users accept the aforementioned open, simple and chargeless admission to e-books that they accept appear to await on with concrete books,” said the letter.

For City-limits Librarian Luis Herrera, the a lot of important agency in the attempt amid libraries and publishers is accouterment admission to advice to those who can’t allow to buy e-books on their own. He cited the Pew analysis that begin that even a part of library e-book borrowers, 41 percent still paid for their a lot of contempo e-book. He believes that’s affirmation that publishers can advice libraries accomplish their borough duties of allegorical the masses and still about-face a profit.