The devices people work on have become even more important with the rapid adoption of work from home by companies around the world. While we’ve been focused on offering the most premium, versatile and secure portfolio of PCs to help professionals work from anywhere, we’re driven by the possibilities to do more.
Today we announced new devices across our Latitude, Precision and OptiPlex commercial PC portfolios that push the boundaries of first-to-market innovation. From 5G and AI-based productivity features to thermal innovations and commitment to sustainable designs, maintenance and operations, we are responding to what people want right now — to work more intelligently and efficiently while at the same time reduce their environmental impact.
It’s an interesting concept. Pursuing small and light devices that offer more performance, longer battery life, reduced heat, powerful speakers, new antennas to support 5G — while delivering on our sustainability goals. From an engineering perspective, there can be challenges — the smaller you get, the less space you have to disperse heat. The lighter the device, the more you need to balance the weight of reclaimed materials, batteries and speakers. But we don’t believe it’s a choice of one over the other. In fact, to us, innovation includes sustainability.
I’m proud to say this is our smallest, lightest, most secure and most intelligent commercial PC portfolio ever1. We added Dell Optimizer, our AI-based productivity software, across the commercial portfolio to help you focus on the tasks that matter most. We cleverly engineered our Latitude 9510 to include 5G antennas in our speakers for amazing connectivity and call quality. We re-designed our Precision workstations to put their power and performance into sleek and smaller designs. We re-engineered thermals on both Latitude and Precision. We launched our first 4K, low blue light panel on a business PC; re-designed keyboards for more comfort; now offer the same motherboards for PCs and 2-in-1s; the list goes on and on.
And I’m also proud to say this the industry’s most sustainable commercial PC portfolio.2 All of our new products are registered as EPEAT Gold or Silver. But when we look at sustainability, we hold ourselves to our own high standards – pushing to find ways to reduce our environmental impact, not just by incorporating recycled materials in our products, but throughout the entire product ecosystem and lifecycle. Advancing sustainability is part of our Progress Made Real plan focused on how Dell Technologies will drive measurable change for some of the biggest challenges facing society over the next decade.
Building upon the waterborne paints we used in our Latitude 7300 launched last fall, we’ve expanded the use of waterborne paint to 100% of the painted parts across more Latitude devices to reduce VOC emissions – and we plan to expand this across the commercial portfolio. We have made great strides in increasing our use of post-consumer recycled plastic and reclaimed carbon fiber across our commercial portfolio, achieving up to 60% recycled plastic in the OptiPlex portfolio3. We have a goal that 100% of our packaging will be made from recycled or renewable materials by 2030, and with our new Latitude 2-in-1s, we expanded our use of ocean-bound recycled plastic materials into newly designed 100% recycled product cushions. And we’re transitioning to sustainably forested cardboard across our product packaging.
It’s not just for PCs either. On the displays side, we’re an industry leader with seven products that have registered as EPEAT Gold and many Dell monitors have been awarded the ENERGY STAR® Most Efficient Mark in 2020. On the server side, we’re running pilots that eliminate up to 520 pounds of packaging per rack shipment of our PowerEdge servers with the transportation tote.
And most importantly, we are committed to accelerating the circular economy, offering responsible, secure commercial asset recovery where we handle everything from pick-up logistics to data sanitization, resale and recycling. Plastics and additional materials collected through our other takeback programs also get recycled back into new parts for new computers via a closed-loop process – helping foster a circular economy.
There has never been a time in my more than 20-year career that I believe more in the power of the PC and Dell Technologies than I do now. We have the unique opportunity to deliver more for people wherever they are working, to help them take on their day, while tapping into their passion for (and our commitment to) sustainability. Turning challenges into opportunities drives innovation, which is what our customers demand. I’m incredibly proud of the products we are launching today, but also inspired by what the future holds as we continue to push the boundaries to deliver the best possible experience AND support a sustainable future.
1 Based on Dell analysis, Nov 2019.
2 Based on the design, manufacture, packaging, product lifecycle maintenance and number of ecolabel registrations, including EPEAT Gold registrations for the Dell Precision, Latitude and OptiPlex portfolio as of May 2020.
3 Measured as a percentage of total amount of plastic (by weight) in the product as per guidance in EPEAT standard as applies to plastics parts.
