HP Aims for the Top in Environmental Sustainability

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) made a series of announcements over the last several weeks detailing its achievements in attaining environmental excellence. Areas of achievement included energy efficiency, manufacturing and raw materials usage, and a new product recovery campaign with the State of California.

Focal Points:

• HP has released its 2007 Global Citizenship Report in which it declared it had met or exceeded many of its goals. Most notably, HP had achieved its greenhouse gas reduction target of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2010 three years early and is now targeting an additional five percent reduction by 2010. The company has also disclosed its list of suppliers to provide transparency into the environmental behaviors exhibited throughout its supply chain, and believes it is the first major hardware vendor to do so. It conducted 150 audits of its suppliers to help ensure that the proper level of standards were in place and enforced. Other improvements include the amount of recycled plastic employed in HP inkjet cartridges and the elimination of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) from all HP packaging.
• Elsewhere, the company announced that its entire personal workstation product line is now certified by the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) has achieved a "Gold" rating, which is the highest issued. All new HP workstations are designed for energy efficiency and include 80 PLUS power supplies, and are more than 90 percent recyclable by weight. The company has also launched a new recycling program called Green Expressway to help HP resellers expedite asset recovery for older HP and non-HP PCs and notebooks. Customers can recycle up to 20 systems for as low as $18 per item. Companies requiring end-of-life services on a greater amount of systems have that option as well, and can work with HP business partners and HP itself to determine specific pricing.
• HP also announced a large printer cartridge recycling effort with the State of California. HP provides postage-paid, high-volume collection boxes to any State agency interested in participating in the program, thereby providing an easy manner of free return and recycling for HP ink and toner cartridges. Participating agencies will earn points on an established reward system, and can trade-in older, less-efficient machinery or newer models at discounted rates. The program can potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 500 tons per year and keep 100 tons of print cartridges out of landfills if implemented throughout the State, according to HP. The program was piloted by the State Board of Equalization last year, and is now being rolled out by the Department of General Services. All State agencies can participate by the end of the year.

Experton Group believes HP has made environmental concerns a top priority for the company in all of its operations, and is going to great lengths to demonstrate its commitment to leading the industry in its green-related efforts. HP has integrated improving the environmental attributes of design, manufacture, operations, and raw materials usage in a manner that demonstrates both industry leadership and tangible return on investment for the company. Virtually all IT executives now list energy efficiency and other environmental criteria among the top 10 characteristics required for new hardware purchases, but few have articulated specific goals for their vendors. IT and business executives, as well as those responsible for the company's environmental activities and stakeholder relations, should be working to set ongoing improvements in environmental areas that are good for the company, the markets it serves, and the constituencies where it does business. Many environmental activities have tangible return on investment calculations that can be attained within 18 or fewer months, and corporations can meaningfully look to cut costs while improving their environmental footprints.