HP Offers Environmental Choices to Printing Solutions

HP today unveiled a broad range of efforts designed to help its customers reduce the environmental impact of their imaging and printing.

 

According to HP, many of the announcements today are part of the new HP “Eco Solutions” program, which helps customers identify HP initiatives, products and services designed with the environment in mind.

 

“HP is focused on helping all of our customers—from consumers to enterprises--reduce their environmental impact,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president for Imaging and Printing Group at HP.

 

The new intiative includes enterprise printing assessment service and a carbon calculator, energy and paper use, related carbon emissions and projected cost savings for optimized printing environments.

 

It also includes a global paper policy governing the sustainable manufacture and use of paper HP sells to customers and uses for packaging, collateral and its own office printing, a new HP inkjet printer made almost entirely from recycled materials, and an HP Eco Highlights label that will help customers identify environmental attributes of a given HP product or service, company officials say.

 

Additionally, the company said that it’s working to improve the overall energy efficiency of its ink and laser printing products by 40 percent by 2011, to increase the amount of recycled materials used in its inkjet printers by three times by 2010 and to quadruple the number of HP Halo Collaboration Studios at company sites worldwide by 2009.

 

The company also said it’s put in place a global paper policy to help lower environmental impact through energy and resource savings, digital alternatives, and reuse and recycling programs.

 

HP’s officials said that the company plans to reduce the environmental impact of the papers that company buys, uses and sells by establishing a comprehensive paper policy.

 

The company, according to officials, will ensure that raw material inputs are used efficiently, give preference to suppliers who source fiber from credibly certified, sustainable forests and minimize carbon production and waste in the manufacturing process, and enable the responsible use and recycling of paper.

 

HP said it plans to report on the company’s progress in implementing the policy and reducing the environmental impact of its paper usage.

 

Related to this policy, HP has also pledged that 100 percent of its consumer photo paper will be derived from suppliers certified under a forestry certification program by the end of 2009.

 

Also, beginning this summer, the company plans to use the new packaging design for shipping large printers with copier-like functionality that are on a stand or wheels. Officials said that HP first applied the concept on existing multi-function printers and will use it to ship recently introduced products such as the HP LaserJet M5035x MFP.

 

Recently, the company introduced HP Latex Printing technology, which according to officials, offers print service providers an alternative to traditional large-format printing methods by using water-based inks instead of solvent-ink technology which can be harmful to the environment.