Toshiba to sell trees with laptops

Branching out

By James Sherwood • Get more from this author

28th November 2007 09:20 GMT

Toshiba is branching out from the electronics industry. It’s begun cross-selling an eco-service that it claims will offset the carbon cost of customers' laptops.

Tosh_green_laptop
Buy a tree from Toshiba

Its Carbon Neutral Scheme allows punters to pay an optional £1.18 fee when they buy, say, a Toshiba Satellite laptop. A company spokesman told Register Hardware that each payment is equal to one tree, which will be planted by a third-party in Cumbrian woodland to soak up the CO2.

This, Toshiba said, offsets the carbon emissions arising from that laptop throughout its entire lifetime. However, customers can also opt to spend just £1.18 with Toshiba and plant a single tree.

Toshiba isn’t the first company to launch such a service. Dell sowed the seeds for a similar campaign earlier this year, calling the initiative Plant a Tree For Me.

More information about Toshiba’s carbon offset scheme is available on its website.