Collaboration

Add to my report Go to my report

	With support from HP, WWF is working to analyze and address climate change around the world, including forest conservation and management in Oaxaca, Mexico.

In collaboration with governments, NGOs and other technology companies, HP is focused on developing strong climate change policies, advancing industry standards for energy-efficiency and reducing greenhouse gases emissions throughout the global economy.

	Public policy work

HP supports coordinated and cost-effective actions by governments to help businesses and individuals address climate change. We encourage the development and the promotion of effective climate change policies through participation in global and local organizations such as:

• World Wildlife Fund (WWF) (see below)
• Combat Climate Change
• The International Climate Change Partnership
• Pew Center on Global Climate Change

In late 2007, we signed the Bali Communique, endorsed by 150 global business leaders calling for a comprehensive, legally binding United Nations framework to tackle climate change.

Guiding principles

HP believes these principles should guide strategy for climate change mitigation:

• Policy frameworks that use market-based mechanisms to set clear, transparent and consistent price signals over the long term offer the best hope for unleashing innovation and competition.
• Developing countries have a legitimate aspiration to development, which global policies must take into account. HP supports approaches that create incentives and encourage actions by all countries, including large emitting economies in the developing world, to implement GHG emission reduction strategies.
• IT solutions can help all countries, and particularly developing economies which are building their infrastructure from the ground up, achieve rapid economic development with a lower dependency on fossil fuels.
• Climate change mitigation must not be viewed in isolation from other highly important challenges, such as ensuring access to energy, expanding availability of clean water, alleviating poverty and achieving growth in the global economy.
• Undertaking a system wide, integrated approach to tackling climate change will identify the greatest opportunities to reduce impact throughout the product life cycle.

	World Wildlife Fund collaboration

Video » HP joins WWF Climate Savers Program

In November 2006, HP entered into a relationship with the conservation organization WWF to combat climate change and began working with WWF to set ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We furthered our commitment in February 2008 by joining the WWF Climate Savers program and setting new leadership goals.

As an important element of our collaboration with WWF, research is under way to identify information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, such as teleworking, intelligent heating and cooling, and more efficient use of office space, which could reduce carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) emissions by a billion tonnes annually when applied globally. That represents 2 to 3 percent of current emissions from human activities around the world.¹ To be released in May 2008, the report is a collaboration among thought leaders in the fields of ICT, climate change, innovation and urban planning that will present recommendations for the consideration of the ICT industry, regulators, and our current and future customers.

HP also provides technology for specific WWF projects designed to advance scientific understanding of climate change in specific locales. For example, the Advanced Climate Change Science and Solutions Initiative is a $2 million program addressing the causes and the consequences of climate change. (See Social investment)

	Industry collaboration

We work closely with other information technology companies to advance energy efficiency. For example, HP is a founding board member of The Green Grid Association, a nonprofit global consortium focused on improving data center energy efficiency. In September 2007, Green Grid and the U.S. Department of Energy established a goal of making U.S. data centers 10 percent more energy efficient by 2011. Data centers are among the fastest-growing consumers of energy in the United States. They used an estimated 1.5 percent of U.S. electricity in 2006, and consumption is projected to grow 12 percent a year to 2011. Achieving the 10 percent target would reduce CO₂e by approximately 6.5 million tonnes a year², equivalent to permanently removing about 1.2 million cars from the road.

HP is also a board member of Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), which brings together businesses, consumers and conservation organizations. Launched in June 2007, CSCI works to make new PCs and servers more energy efficient and to promote power management to minimize energy consumption when computers are inactive. HP and other computer suppliers, including component manufacturers, have committed to creating products that meet specified power-efficiency targets. CSCI seeks to reduce computers’ power consumption by 50 percent by 2010, lowering global CO₂e emissions by 54 million tonnes per year—equivalent to the annual emissions of 9.9 million cars.

Through the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), HP provides input to the European Commission’s policymaking and promotion for sustainable energy. As part of the commission’s Sustainable Energy Week, HP worked with Intel and Sun Microsystems to organize the GeSI EU ICT Sustainability Forum. The forum convened commission officials, members of the European Parliament, NGOs, media and business executives to understand how ICT can foster sustainable energy policy objectives.

We also sponsored a landmark study, released in September 2007, that examines the overall impact of ICT on energy consumption and how the high-tech sector can help the EU achieve its goal of reducing energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020. The report, produced by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and AeA Europe, an industry organization, calls for urgent action by high-tech industries to do everything they can to tackle climate change.

HP also joined the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Leadership Collaboration in late 2007 to help develop a consistent and appropriate methodology for disclosing energy use and GHG emissions throughout the supply chain. 

¹ IPCC AR4 Synthesis Report Summary for Policy Makers, page 4: 49, GtCO₂e in 2004, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf.
² http://www.energy.gov/news/5504.htm