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Sustainable design

Sustainable design

The hundreds of millions of HP products in use worldwide collectively represent HP’s greatest impact on sustainability. We continually challenge ourselves to improve the environmental performance of our products throughout their life cycle, design solutions that support digital transformation to a low-carbon economy, reduce the total cost of ownership and design our products to be accessible. Our goal is enhanced productivity and entertainment for customers, and improved environmental performance.

Environmental issues have been integral to our research and development programs since the early 1990s, and we launched our Design for Environment (DfE) program in 1992. DfE is central to our design strategy and helps us meet increasing customer demand for improved environmental performance. Our global network of more than 50 environmental product stewards works with design teams to decrease the impact of our products across the life cycle— including materials and energy used in manufacture, packaging packaging and distribution; energy and resources (such as paper) consumed during use, and how they are managed at end of life.

Highlights

20x: improved energy efficiency of optical connections under development at HP Labs, compared to existing technology
5,000 tonnes (11 million pounds): amount of recycled content resin (75 percent recycled content) in our new Original HP inkjet print cartridges in 2009
40%: our goal for the amount of HP branded paper sold that will be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or have more than 30% post-consumer waste content by the end of 2011

Industry standards

We regularly collaborate with other organizations to develop industry standards that encourage innovation, optimize environmental performance, and educate customers and make it easier for them to choose products. For example, HP participated in developing the standard that is the basis for the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT®) for desktop computers, notebooks and monitors. We are involved in the standard-development process and working-group forums that are drafting the next set of EPEAT standards for product types such as imaging equipment, televisions, servers and cell phones. HP is also working with the iNEMI Eco-Impact Evaluator for ICT Equipment project, which is developing a simple way to determine the key life cycle environmental impacts and improvement opportunities for information and communications technology products. (See Life cycle assessment for detail.) We support international expansion of the EPEAT registry and offer EPEAT-registered products in 38 of the 41 countries included in the global expansion.

Eco-labels

HP offers many products that meet eco-label programs, including EPEAT, ENERGY STAR®, China’s Energy Conservation Program, Germany’s Blue Angel and Taiwan’s Green Mark.

We introduced the HP Eco Highlights in 2008, helping customers understand the environmental attributes of a specific product, tool or service. The HP Eco Highlights label is available on more than 215 HP products.

Measuring environmental performance

Building on environmental design expertise refined over many years, HP is developing enhanced environmental performance metrics for its products. These metrics will complement and extend EPEAT criteria.

The objective is to develop tools that will enable product stewards and designers to readily assess environmental performance of different products. Developing new standard measures that apply across the broad portfolio will provide decision support for product teams and enable comparisons against specific goals or other products. Initial metrics include carbon footprint and energy consumption, and recyclability.

Design for recyclability

We design HP products to be more easily recycled, using common fasteners and snap-in features and avoiding the use of glues, adhesives and welds where feasible. This makes it easier to dismantle products and to separate and identify different plastics.

The materials we choose can also enhance recyclability. For example, HP Illumi-Lite LED displays are mercury-free, which makes them easier to manage at the end of product life. Other HP notebooks are designed with a magnesium and aluminum chassis that replaces most of its plastic, making the product easier to recycle.

On average, new HP notebook PC products are more than 90 percent recyclable by weight,¹ and HP workstations and dc series desktop products are designed with a tool-less chassis for easy upgrade and recycling at end of life.

HP has a comprehensive research and development program focusing on “de-inking” printer paper for recycling. De-inking removes dirt, ink and other contaminants and is essential to produce high-grade recycled pulp. In partnership with independent research labs, HP has developed improved methods for assessing the deinkability of digital prints. We have also conducted research to understand and improve the performance of HP inkjet ink (including the role of HP Bonding Agent) and HP Indigo ElectroInk—both of which have demonstrated good deinkability.

HP is also researching the influence of paper design on the deinkability of inkjet and ElectroInk prints. For example, the additive typically used in HP ColorLok and HP ColorPro papers greatly enhances inkjet deinkability. Finally, HP Labs has identified a safer approach for the use of chemicals during the deinking process, and will publish these results for the benefit of the paper industry. (For details, visit http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2009/jul-sep/deinking.html.)

Recycling terms

These descriptions explain how HP uses the following terms:

Recycling. Products are diverted from disposal to reclaim materials that can be used in new products either directly as parts or as raw materials after reprocessing, or for energy recovery.

Recycled content. Proportion of post-consumer recycled material in a new product or package.

Recycled material. Material that has been saved from being disposed of as waste and is reprocessed as input to manufacture new products. It may either be waste from manufacturing processes or recovered material from products used by consumers.

Reducing environmental impacts across the product life cycle

Accessibility and aging

HP strives to create products, services and information that are accessible to everyone, including people with disabilities or seniors with age-related limitations. HP’s commitment is reflected in our product and website design process, partnerships with assistive technology vendors, education of employees about accessibility regulations and best practices, and participation in efforts to update accessibility standards around the world.

Our product design teams explore ways to enhance accessibility, productivity and user comfort. Accessibility features on HP products may include buttons identifiable by touch, ports and switches positioned within easy reach, and large adjustable displays. Product examples include dual-hinge widescreen monitors that can be lowered closer to the desk surface for bi-focal, tri-focal or progressive lens wearers, and the Senior PC, which is configured to provide seniors easy access to e-mail and the Internet.

See our HP Accessibility website http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/accessibility/ for extensive additional information.