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 weight1, and HP workstations and dc series desktop products are designed with a tool-less chassis for easy recycling and upgrade at end of life. Our printing and imaging products are typically 70 percent to 85 percent recyclable or recoverable by weight.
The tens 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 and reduce the total cost of ownership for customers while simultaneously developing offerings that support a transformation to a low-carbon economy. We also aim to make our products as accessible as possible, including for those who are less able due to physical or age-related disabilities.
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. Through DfE our design teams work to decrease the impact of our products across the life cycle—the materials and packaging we specify, how our products are manufactured and distributed, the energy they consume in use, and how they are managed at end of life. This includes the use of paper, which constitutes the largest environmental impact of printing.
DfE is central to our design strategy. We consider environmental issues early in the process to make the biggest impact. Integrating sustainability into design helps us meet increasing customer demand for improved environmental performance. Our DfE focus areas—product energy efficiency, materials innovation and design for recyclability—reflect customers’ priorities and our assessment of the most significant aspects of product environmental performance that we can improve. Our global network of environmental product stewards works with design and development teams to incorporate environmental innovations into our products and to measure performance.
At times we may encounter potential conflicts between DfE objectives and other business objectives. For example, increasing use of recycled materials in our products has clear environmental benefits. But recycled materials with sufficient consistency and quality to meet our high standards are not consistently available in volume, which can increase costs. We evaluate such challenges and strive to make decisions that best meet the interests of HP and our stakeholders.
Our work on materials and packaging innovation focuses on substances of concern, materials volume and recycled materials. In 2008, we introduced a new sustainable forestry policy for paper we sell to consumers and use internally and in our marketing materials. To make the most responsible choices, we now consider the entire supply chain and life cycle of paper, and have developed printing improvement services to help customers reduce their environmental impact while cutting printing costs.
HP research teams have also pursued sustainable information technology since the early 1990s. Among other advances, they have developed better ways to keep chips cool and created Halo Telepresence Solutions, a video conferencing solution that offers the experience of a face-to-face meeting, which helps reduce the need for business travel (see case study). Building on these successes, we created the HP Sustainable IT Ecosystem Lab in 2008. It's goal is to transform IT by pioneering technologies that minimize energy consumption and materials use.
