Shipping more than a million HP products around the world each day requires large amounts of fossil fuels. We aim to reduce energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) and other air emissions by shifting product transport to more efficient methods, optimizing our distribution network, influencing transport providers to improve their environmental performance, and improving the utilization of trucks, containers and pallets.
We have also extended the use of plastic pallets, which are more than 70 percent lighter than wooden ones, saving fuel for transport. After use, our pallet vendor picks up the pallets from customers (recapture rate is more than 90 percent for our Europe, Middle East and Africa region and more than 70 percent for the Americas) and reuses them if possible or sells the plastic to recyclers. In some cases, customers in the Americas keep the pallets for internal use.
Most of our computer and imaging products are assembled in Asia and then transported to Europe and the Americas, where we make most of our sales. We typically ship these products by air and ocean to regional distribution centers, and then by truck or rail to their final destinations. To reduce costs, we are continually converting shipments from air to ocean. This also reduces GHG emissions because each tonne of freight transported by ocean produces only about 1/60th of the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) that airfreight produces. The table below shows typical emissions per kilometer of transport by mode.1
| Transport mode |
CO2e per km (kg) |
| Air |
0.57 |
| Road (truck) |
0.072 |
| Rail |
0.02 |
| Ocean |
0.01 |
In 2008, HP added environmental performance as one of the seven core elements in our new logistics strategy, and we introduced environmental criteria in requirements for carriers. Requests for Quotations (RFQs) now cover aspects such as environmental policies and programs, the ability to calculate GHG emissions for HP’s freight and proposals to help HP reduce emissions.
Most of these emissions are from international airfreight, while roughly 25 percent are from road transport and parcel freight. Although we use ocean transport extensively, we estimate it produces less than 5 percent of our total GHG emissions from logistics.
Improving distribution
Optimizing our distribution network decreases the distance products travel and therefore reduces GHG emissions. For example, when shipping notebook computers from Shanghai, we now bypass our central distribution hub in Western Europe and ship directly to some destinations—Dubai, Johannesburg and Moscow. This has reduced CO2e emissions by an estimated 4,200 tonnes per year.
Logistics enhancements
Within the United States, we moved a distribution center in 2008 from Memphis, Tennessee, to the West Coast, optimizing our freight, inventory and distribution costs for inkjet printers, which are imported from China through the port of Long Beach in California. This change decreased CO2e emissions by 4,800 tonnes per year.
In 2009, HP will continue to convert shipments from air to ocean, air to truck, and truck to rail. We will investigate CO2e reduction projects sponsored by local governments as well as opportunities to use rail in China. We will also continue to improve distribution to reduce distance traveled by completing the Europe network optimization project, changing manufacturing locations and increasing the use of direct shipments.
SmartWay
HP participates in the SmartWaySM program, a voluntary partnership between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. surface freight industry that targets reductions in fuel consumption, GHG emissions and other air emissions.
In April 2008, HP became the first company out of almost 1,000 partners to include the SmartWay logo on its product packaging, due to its surface transport carrier network. All HP products in the U.S. and Canada are shipped using an exclusive network of SmartWay-certified surface transport carriers. HP earned a SmartWay Excellence Award from the EPA for leadership in conserving energy and lowering GHG emissions.
Performance
In 2008, the emissions for the freight our global logistics providers transported on our behalf equaled an estimated 1.8 million tonnes CO2e. This compares with 1,448,500 million tonnes CO2e from our own operations. We estimate that projects in 2008 reduced GHG emissions by more than 25,000 tonnes CO2e. Last year, we estimated emissions in 2007 were 2 million tonnes CO2e, indicating a 10 percent reduction during 2008. The figures may not be directly comparable, however, as we have improved data collection and included data from logistics providers in our calculation for 2008.