GREEN BEHIND THE SCENES AT HP
November 11, 2008 - In 1971, Bill Hewlett, co-founder
of HP, said, “The deepening concern for preservation of the environment
involves the whole basic question of man on this earth: How may the earth’s
resources be preserved?” From recycling computer printouts and punch cards in
1971, to creating a hardware recycling program in 1987 and initiating the HP
Planet Partners program in 1991 to reclaim and recycle used HP print
cartridges, processing them to recover plastics and metals for new products and
diverting millions of tons of waste from landfills, HP has been involved in the
environmental movement for decades.
Echoing the sentiments of Bill Hewlett at a recent
analyst event was Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s Imaging and
Printing Group. “Enterprise customers not only want to improve cost, they want
to improve productivity and they want to take care of the environment while
they are doing it. It is no longer a nice thing to do, but it is a requirement.
The environment is really becoming a big deal for all of our customers. PCs
and printers are a big part of a company’s IT carbon footprint and we want to
help customers do the right thing.” To this end, HP plans to increase energy
efficiency of its inkjet and LaserJet printers by 40 percent by the year 2010
(the company has already achieved its previous goal of a 30 percent reduction
in energy consumption over previous-generation products), triple the use of
recycled materials in its inkjet products by 2010 and derive 100 percent of its
consumer photo paper content from sustainable forest suppliers.
During the recent analyst event, HP highlighted a
number of new features and capabilities designed to help businesses make more
environmentally conscious business decisions. HP also hosted an informative
session moderated by Jeff Erikson of SustainAbility, a consulting firm that
specializes in sustainable development and corporate responsibility, that
highlighted some of the progress HP has made in being more environmentally
responsible.
Enhanced Carbon Footprint Calculator For Printing
Announced in October, the newly enhanced HP Carbon
Footprint Calculator for printing allows users to evaluate their energy
consumption, paper use, carbon output and the associated monetary costs of
their printing environment to understand how they can reduce their environmental
impact through responsible printing.
The calculator combines the capabilities of the
existing Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing and the HP LaserJet Power
Calculator to help customers make more accurate assessments of the impact of their
printing. The calculator allows users to evaluate their current print fleet or
create head-to-head comparisons of single products or fleets of printers to
determine the most environmentally conscious and cost-effective mix of products
for their business (products available in the calculator include a mix of
current HP printers, legacy HP printers from the last 20 years and competitors’
printers from the last 10 years). Customers can compare energy use of their
current printers—both inkjet and laser—with data from different HP products or
competitors’ products to better understand and reduce their carbon footprints.
Other enhancements include the ability to measure the
energy consumption of inkjet printers (the previous calculator only included
laser-based models); more regionally localized data (for example, customers in
Europe can view their savings in Euros per kWh); a new capability to calculate
the positive impact of “pull printing” of held jobs to eliminate wasted
resources on print jobs that are never picked up; and the ability to customize
information about printer fleets, such as the percentage of duplex printers, or
build a fleet of specific product types and quantities. The HP Carbon Footprint
Calculator for printing can be found on HP’s Web site and is free to all
customers in 146 countries throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Asia.
HP Eco Highlights Label Provides Green At A Glance
Designed to assist customers in making informed
decisions about the environmental impact of their imaging and printing, the HP
Eco Highlights label summarizes features that reduce the environmental impact
of a product, such as energy use and recyclability. Since its introduction in May,
the label has been incorporated on nearly 65 products across HP’s Imaging and Printing
Group and Personal Systems Group. Customers can locate the Eco Highlights label
on packaging, the Web and in data sheets.
Auto-On/Auto-Off Feature To Save On Energy Consumption
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates
customers waste up to 66 percent of their total energy use by not turning off
IT equipment on nights and weekends. A new feature called HP Auto-On/Auto-Off
can help address energy and cost concerns in this area. This setting will help
improve energy efficiency in personal desktop LaserJet printers by up to three
times versus a device’s normal sleep mode by automatically powering down
printers after a period of inactivity and putting them into a mode that uses
less than one watt of power, which according to HP is an industry first for
printers. According to HP, the copy industry and some high end HP MFPs use an
internal clock to drive sleep and wake modes. These modes are not below
the industry definition of off, but rather a deep sleep. This clock is
set and does not change based on job activity. On the other hand, HP’s
Auto-On / Auto-Off meets the industry definition of off and is activated on job
activity. Further, while a copier may use sleep mode at night and weekends,
HP’s Auto-On / Auto-Off operates all day. Thus, if the average daily job for a
desktop printer is 15 minutes, with HP’s Auto-On / Auto-Off the device
will be in OFF mode for the balance of the workday, and not the ON mode like a
copier. HP will pre-configure its new printers to power down automatically
after a set amount of time (ranging from one to 30 minutes) and give customers
the ability to customize and pre-set their own off times for the printer. This
proprietary technology works in concert with Instant-on Technology, which
enables customers to produce the first page faster when a printer is coming out
of sleep mode. This feature will begin shipping with personal monochrome laser
printers in 2009, eventually rolling out to the majority of the HP LaserJet
portfolio.
More Recycled Content In Products And Packaging
The HP Deskjet D2545 is made from more recycled
plastic content, at a total of 83 percent, than any other HP printer to date, with
100 percent of the outer casing and tray parts made from recycled content. One
of the first inkjet printers to feature HP’s new Eco Highlights label, the Deskjet
D2545 is ENERGY STAR qualified and comes packaged in molded end caps made from
recycled materials. In addition to incorporating recycled content and shipping
in 100 percent recyclable packaging, the Deskjet D2545 includes HP Smart Web
Printing software, which lets users easily combine portions of numerous Web
pages onto a single page prior to printing.
Earlier this year, HP announced an engineering
breakthrough that enables the use of post-consumer recycled plastics—such as HP
inkjet cartridges and everyday water bottles—in the production of new HP inkjet
print cartridges. This year alone, HP has used more than 7 million pounds of
recycled plastic as part of this “closed loop” recycling process and HP expects
to reach its goal of 10 million pounds by the end of this year. Since
announcing this “closed loop” recycling process, HP is now using recycled
plastics in production of nearly 20 types of cartridges.
HP has also engineered a new way to package its
high-end printers that, according to the company, decreases the volume of foam
packaging materials by almost 70 percent. With HP’s clear packaging system, the
products have been designed so that they do not need to be entirely encased and
instead are supported with packaging materials only in critical areas where the
printer requires extra support, and are then wrapped in a clear polyethylene film
instead of using a cardboard box. When compared to traditional packaging
methods, the new packaging uses between 22 and 49 percent less corrugated
material by weight.
