In May last year, Acer unveiled its Greening action plan, which puts the tech giant firmly on the right path to reducing its carbon footprint. The company then upped its green game by joining the RE100 initiative, a collective of more than 300 leading companies trying to minimize the impact they have on the world. With it, Acer announced that it would share a commitment to achieve 100% renewable energy use by 2035.
Appropriately as Acer, a company sharing its name with a kind of tree— promised that for every Acer Aspire Vero laptop sold, 100 trees would be planted. As part of its “Earthion” sustainability mission, the company has partnered with Ecologi, which works with charities such as Protect the Earth to plant these trees. And Acer is forcing tech writers like me to do its green bidding.
Just this week, I descended on a muddy farm in the Cotswolds with a group of tech writers, volunteers and Ecologi warriors, to plant trees in Acer’s name. And to confirm to us that the company is delivering on its promise of a greener, carbon-neutral future.
By the time we finished, about 750 saplings stood majestically wrapped in biodegradable tree guards and hidden in small hemp blankets to help retain water and prevent large weeds from engulfing their delicate tree trunks. baby.
We also pulled it all off just in time for the owner’s daughter’s wedding. And what a fabulous boast it will be for them, when their family gathers in the bell tent in the lower field, surrounded by purebred sheep and fresh saplings.
More importantly, within 50 years, the trees we plant alone will have sequestered 250 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere. And while that sounds like a tiny amount compared to the 87.8 million tons dumped into the atmosphere daily, there are at least companies like Acer and Razer with its Sneki Snek campaign trying to reduce the damage. the technology industry contributed.
If you’re a PC gamer who’s feeling a little green, but isn’t looking for a recycled, non-gaming Acer laptop, why not plant a tree instead?
If you don’t have the time, but can spare the price of a coffee a week, you can sign up to support Ecologi’s tree planting projects. Or for other UK-based techno-hippies looking for a more hands-on approach, why not drag your nerdy friends to some Protect Earth Events like the one Acer told me about? Landowners are also more than welcome to get in touch, I was told.
At the event, I spoke with Phil Sturgeon, who helps run the charity Protect Earth with his passion for well-managed hedges. As a former software engineer turned eco-nomad, he understands the fascination we all share with technology, but fell into reforestation when he realized that while he was busy chopping lines of code, the earth became “progressively more screwed up”.
Phil invested his nest egg in the charity, and his daily passion, along with Acer’s efforts on behalf of the planet, sent me into a mini green panic. In the end, planting a few trees is really the least we can do to refuse to turn off our PCs at night; who knows, you might even enjoy it.
I know I did.
While the green promises of Vero laptops don’t quite reach Acer’s best laptops made for gaming yet, promises like Acer’s hint at a larger movement taking shape in the tech industry. Companies are starting to take this into account and temper their impact, so maybe we can feel a little less guilty about the power-hungry technology we all consume.
