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Earth Day has rolled around again, a day marked by a flurry of publicists' emails extolling the green virtues of their prospective tech companies. Techworld's sister-publication Computerworld (Canada) revisits some of the companies it met last year, and finds out about their eco-initiatives, and commitments over the past year to the environment - and their now green-coloured fat bottom line.

Dell Dell has its work cut out for it - last June, founder Michael Dell announced that his new goal was to make Dell the greenest technology company. Dell has pledged to become carbon-neutral by the end of 2008. To help it reach its goal, more stringent "sleep" policies have been implemented in the company's hardware, resulting in US$1.8 million in energy savings. Over at the Round Rock facility, $1 million has been saved, courtesy of automated lighting systems. Dell also tries to use as much green energy has possible, with much of the power coming from wind, which is abundant down in Texas. Suppliers are also forced to submit their emission levels during the review process, making it more of a competitive point for potential Dell business partners, said Bryant Hilton, Dell's environment communications manager.

VMware The virtualisation company is well-situated to tackle the problem of energy guzzling. Its technologies can net client server reductions in the 70- to 90-percent range, according to director of alliances Josh Leslie, who said that the resulting consolidation can result in energy savings of 50 percent. Its Distributed Power Management feature also helps companies turn off servers when they're not needed. The company has partnered up with a whack of power companies to offer virtualisation incentives to businesses looking for cost savings in the datacentre. The three major Californian utilities are on board, with more than a dozen in talks to follow. According to Leslie, VMware anticipates having 50 to 80 percent of utility companies on board over the next 18 months.

HP HP has the highest number of gold products on the objective, eco-ranking hardware site EPEAT.org, said Frances Edmonds, director of environmental programmes with HP Canada. Last year also saw the company reach the 1 billion-pound mark of products recycled. "We've now switched the goal," said Edmonds. "Now we'd like to reach 2 billion pounds by 2010." HP has had to adjust another goal: in 2005, it pledged to bring its emission levels 20 percent lower by 2010. Having reached this goal three years early, this year saw the company pledging to aim for a decrease in 25 percent in emissions by 2010 instead. HP's bustling services practice also has some eco-friendly features, including the new Dynamic Smart Cooling consulting that aims to help clients reduce cooling costs in their datacentres with thermal zone mapping.

EMC An eight percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 is EMC's goal, according to director of enterprise marketing Dick Sullivan, who said that a LEEDs application is also in the works for the company's headquarters and its new facility in Bangalore. The company has also contributed financially and through technical support to the Global Alliance for ICT and Development. Also on deck is a new solid-state drive that offers customers a 38-percent boost in energy efficiency.

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