Guilty as charged

Like many of the largest vendors in the IT industry, Hewlett Packard has a good story to tell when it comes to Green initiatives, According to Annukka Dickens, environment manager, HP South Pacific, being a global citizen first became a part of the company’s corporate objectives back in the 1950s and today that translates into a number of green initiatives, from the recently announced trial of a carbon offset program for its printers, to full lifecycle planning to reduce emissions during manufacture, supply chain usage and end-of- use recycling.

The company’s first recycling program began 20 years ago and has so far recycled one billion pounds by weight. The next milestone is to recover another billion pounds by 2010.

Dickens confirmed the company’s recycling efforts are still a cost centre and explained that the focus on manufacturing, the choice of materials and product design are all part of an approach the company has in place to reduce the cost of recycling and improve reuse.

The chances of reaching a break-even point will vary from country to country, she said. “We would like to see break even. It depends on which part of the world you are in, it’s a volume game, but it also involves the efficiency of the recycling technology you use,” she said.

“We see (Designed For Environment) as an opportunity. If (a product) is designed for recycling we can reduce the cost at end-of-life and get the recycling value up. Small changes in a product can have a big impact on this equation. Hopefully we will be able to demonstrate that the investment you put in at the beginning of the life can improve yield. It is a longer term strategic approach,” she said.

Simon Elisha, chief technologist for Hitachi disk storage subsystems told CRN about the company’s extensive eco program which also begins long before the product reaches the user. Each product is assessed against eight criteria including all aspects of manufacturing, distribution, usage, recovery and disposal.

Hitachi’s “Environmental Efficiency” index measures the environmental impact and resource consumption of its products. Hitachi calculates the ratio of the product’s value to the raw materials used in its production and the amount of waste remaining when it is disposed of as well as the ratio of a product’s value to the quantity of greenhouse gases generated during its lifecycle. This might be affected not only by the physical design of the machine, such as the ability to power down drives when not in use, but the company also contributes to efficiencies with features such as dynamic provisioning and de-duplication, which can be used to improve utilisation and therefore reduce energy consumption.

“It’s not that we are trying to sell less,” he said. “We are trying to solve problems. Trying to develop a relationship with the customer who deals with their usage of technology, not just shipping them a whole bunch of disks.”

Tom Lewis at Fuji Xerox said the company’s parent partners in Xerox and Fuji are heavily into reducing environmental impacts, not because they are the worst offenders, but because they are good corporate citizens.

With triple bottom line reporting in place for about six years, he said the company has been actively managing enviromental concerns well before it was fashionable. Factors such as the company’s use of emulsion aggregate toner which fuses at a lower temperature and the use of solid inks, which eliminate the need for toner and cartridges reduce waste by 90 percent as a matter of course. That solid ink toner is actually made of soy, said Lewis. “So we think it sounds better for you and apparently you can eat it, though you wouldn’t want to.”

But Lewis said that the printer industry’s environmental initiatives go beyond recycling, reducing packaging and Energy Star compliance.

“It might sound strange to say we are helping people print less, but with better document management we can help reduce output. You sell less toner and less paper, but the introduction of services shifts the industry from making money from output to helping them reduce output and improve productivity. Managed print programs mean, if nothing else, it gives visibility to what is being printed so that companies can measure that impact. “The printing industry as a whole is taking the environmental industry seriously and working with customers to improve sustainability,”
he said.