HP has unveiled a broad effort to help make it easy for customers to reduce the environmental impact of their imaging and printing.
Targeting customers spanning individual consumers to large businesses, the wide-ranging initiative includes elements such as:
- an enterprise printing assessment service and a carbon calculator that together comprehensively address energy and paper use, related carbon emissions and projected cost savings for optimized printing environments;
- a global paper policy governing the sustainable manufacture and use of paper HP sells to customers and uses for packaging, collateral and its own office printing;
- a new HP inkjet printer made almost entirely from recycled materials; and,
- an HP Eco Highlights label that will help customers identify environmental attributes of a given HP product or service.
Many of the announcements today are part of the new HP Eco Solutions program, which helps customers identify HP initiatives, products and services designed with the environment in mind.
“HP is focused on helping all of our customers – from consumers to enterprises – reduce their environmental impact,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “Over the past nine months we’ve helped several Fortune 500 customers realize up to a 30 percent reduction in their carbon footprint related to imaging and printing by using a variety of HP tools and services.”
Furthering its commitment to environmental responsibility in the area of imaging and printing, HP also pledged to:
- improve the overall energy efficiency of its ink and laser printing products by 40 percent(1) by 2011;
- increase the amount of recycled materials used in its inkjet printers by three times by 2010 (relative to 2007);
- quadruple the number of HP Halo Collaboration Studios at company sites worldwide by 2009, resulting in an expected reduction of more than 20,000 trips and millions of dollars saved in travel annually; and,
- surpass 250 million cumulative HP inkjet and LaserJet cartridges recycled in 2008, helping the company reach its goal of recovering 2 billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010.
HP Eco Solutions program
HP Eco Solutions is a company-wide program created to help customers easily identify environmental initiatives, products and services designed with the environment in mind. Elements of the program include:
- The clear and simple-to-read HP Eco Highlights label helps customers understand the environmental attributes of a specific product, tool or service. The label will be used across all HP product categories, with the newly introduced HP Deskjet D2545, HP LaserJet P4015x, LaserJet P4515x and LaserJet P4515xm(2) printers being the first products to feature it. Customers can locate the Eco Highlights label on packaging, the web and in data sheets.
- HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology can improve energy efficiency up to three times in HP LaserJet personal devices beginning in 2009, and over 20 times as the technology continues to be incorporated throughout the rest of the LaserJet line. This savings is achieved by enabling the printers to go into a deep sleep mode – using less than one watt of power – after a period of inactivity, and then quickly powering back on after sensing activity again.
- The HP Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing allows customers to compare the carbon footprint of their existing printer fleet to that of a new, optimized fleet to understand how they can reduce their impact on the environment. The calculator assesses printer energy and paper use, the carbon impact of usage and associated monetary costs based on geographical energy assessments. Customers may access the calculator online at the end of June or work directly with HP to build a baseline annualized estimate of their printer fleet’s carbon footprint.
- The HP LaserJet Power Calculator enables micro, small and medium business customers to compare product-specific energy data from popular HP LaserJet printers with data from competitors’ products. Customers also can compare new HP LaserJet products with older HP models to illustrate energy savings in kilowatt hours and estimated dollars achieved simply by upgrading their older devices. It is available at www.hp.com/large/ipg/environment.
- A new addition to HP’s existing suite of services, the HP Eco Printing Assessment helps customers assess their energy consumption, paper usage and carbon emissions, and recommends ways to use less energy and paper, recycle more and reduce the impact of imaging and printing.
- Finding new uses for recycled materials, HP introduced the HP Deskjet D2545 Printer, the company’s first printer made almost entirely from recycled plastic material. Eighty-three percent of the printer’s total plastic weight is made from recycled plastics and it uses HP 60 ink cartridges, which are molded from recycled plastic resins. Additionally, the overall packaging for this printer is 100 percent recyclable. The printer is ENERGY STAR® qualified and features HP Smart Web Printing, which lets users easily combine portions of numerous web pages onto one page to save paper. The HP Deskjet D2545 Printer is currently available in Wal-Mart stores and the HP Home & Home Office Store for an estimated retail price of $44.99.(3)
- Lastly, HP plans to introduce this summer a printer that will feature recycled plastic derived from the company’s "closed loop"plastic recycling system, which incorporates a variety of post-consumer recycled plastics, from HP inkjet cartridges to water bottles.
HP paper policy
HP’s global paper policy is an important part of the company’s effort to help itself and its customers lower their environmental impact through energy and resource savings, digital alternatives, and reuse and recycling programs. HP is pledging to reduce the environmental impact of the papers the company buys, uses and sells by establishing one of the most comprehensive paper policies in the industry. HP’s paper policy incorporates six guiding principles that apply worldwide to HP branded paper, as well as paper used for HP’s internal operations, external marketing collateral and product packaging.
HP’s policy sets guidelines for the entire lifecycle of paper. The company will ensure that raw material inputs are used efficiently, give preference to suppliers who source fiber from credibly certified, sustainable forests and minimize carbon production and waste in the manufacturing process, and enable the responsible use and recycling of paper. HP plans to report on the company’s progress in implementing the policy and reducing the environmental impact of its paper usage.
Related to this policy, HP is pledging that 100 percent of its consumer photo paper will be derived from suppliers certified under a forestry certification program(4) by the end of 2009. HP is the world’s No. 1 selling brand of inkjet photo papers(5) and, with this pledge, becomes the first company to ensure that it makes sustainable sourcing and production choices throughout its entire paper supply chain.
Environmentally responsible clear packaging design
HP has engineered a way to package its high-end printers that, on average, cuts the volume of packaging materials needed to ship these products in half. The new clear packaging design eliminates the need for an outer corrugated box and extensive foam packaging, instead using minimal foam and supports along with a durable transparent film to encase the product for shipping. The outer transparent plastic film is made from the same recyclable materials as plastic milk jugs, and customers will have less packaging to manage when they receive their products.
HP is the first in the technology industry to apply this method to printing products. Beginning this summer, the company plans to use the new packaging design for shipping large printers with copier-like functionality that are on a stand or wheels. HP first applied the concept on existing multi-function printers and will use it to ship recently introduced products such as the HP LaserJet M5035x MFP.
Digital printing alternatives
HP has a long history of bringing to market digital printing alternatives that reduce a customer’s environmental footprint.
Earlier this year, the company showcased digital solutions for the retail photo printing market that consume three times less energy than comparable silver halide products and reduce the chemical and water waste associated with traditional photo processing.
Additionally, HP advanced the trend of print-on-demand publishing with the introduction of several new digital presses and workflow solutions over the past year. According to Pira International, up to 30 percent of traditional book stock remains unsold and is eventually re-pulped(6); with digital print-on-demand book publishing, excess inventory is significantly reduced.
The company also recently introduced HP Latex Printing technology, which offers print service providers a compelling alternative to traditional large-format printing methods by using water-based inks instead of solvent-ink technology which can be harmful to the environment.
More information about these announcements and HP’s social and environmental history is available at www.hp.com/go/ecosolutions.
