HP and the Environment
From Lauraibm
Contents |
Summary
Coverage in the Press
What the Vendor says about itself
- HP's commitment to environmentally sustainable development
- HP: Environmental, Health and Safety Policy
- HP: Product Return and Recycling
- HP: Product Design
- HP: Material Use
End of Life
Electronic waste, or E-waste, is a growing environmental concern. By designing products that can be easily upgraded to extend their useful lives and designing more recyclable products, HP reduces e-waste and its environmental impacts.
Extending the life of products Most of HP's products have a modular design that allows various components to be removed, upgraded or replaced which extends the useful life of the product. Servers, processors, memory, network connectivity, power supplies, and mass storage devices are upgradeable.
Design for recycling HP products are designed to be recycled. Recycling design features include:
- Modular design to allow components to be removed, upgraded or replaced
- Eliminating glues and adhesives, for example, by using snap-in features
- Marking plastic parts weighing more than 25g according to ISO 11469 international standards, to speed up materials identification during recycling
- Reducing the number and types of materials used
- Using single plastic polymers
- Using molded-in colors and finishes instead of paint, coatings or plating
- Relying on modular designs for ease of disassembly of dissimilar recyclable materials
HP’s DfR standards include clear design guidelines and checklists that can be used to assess a product’s recyclability. This allows HP to develop more easily recyclable products.
Recycling services HP has long been a leader in e-waste recycling. HP's Planet Partners programs offers return and recycling programs for LaserJet printer supplies, Inkjet printer supplies and all manufacturer's computer hardware in many countries around the world.
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Logistics
HP is working to reduce each year the environmental impact of transporting our products around the world. Most of our computer and imaging products are assembled in Asia, while the majority of HP's sales are in Europe and the Americas. We typically transport these products by ship from Asia to regional distribution centers, for transport to their final destination by truck or by rail. We use air transport for lighter products, such as cameras, and when urgent deliveries are necessary. We typically produce servers in the region in which they are sold.
Our logistics network uses significant fossil fuel for ships, trucks and aircraft. The resulting vehicle emissions contribute to climate change and can increase local air pollution. We are unable to measure these emissions because we use third parties rather than our own transport fleet.
Our Design for Logistics program improves transport efficiency throughout HP and decreases energy use per pound of product transported. It ensures that we consider the broad logistics implications of new product packaging and transport, including issues such as pallets and truck loading (see Performance).
We also seek to reduce environmental impacts of our logistics network through a shift from air to ocean freight where practicable. Every tonne of freight transported by air for one kilometer results in 0.6 Kg of CO2 emissions, compared to just 0.003 Kg for ocean transport1.
In 2006, we reduced the environmental impacts of transporting our products by continued modal shift from air transport to sea transport and by improving transport planning and pallet use.
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Sources
- 5. Material Use
- 6. End of Life
- 7. Logistics
