HP Inc.’s mission is to grow its business, not its environmental footprint – and to inspire its customers to do the same. The company is transforming its entire business to drive a more efficient, circular, and low-carbon economy, and it’s enabling its customers to create a more sustainable future with the company’s most sustainable portfolio of products and services.
Over the last few years, there has been an increased focus from the private sector to stop plastic from leaking into the ocean. But even with beach cleanups and banning plastic straws, 17.6 billion pounds of plastic waste ends up in the ocean each year, and that number is projected to grow to 38.5 billion pounds per year by 2025. We’re at an inflection point – consumers are demanding companies take action and make radical change. To that end, HP set out to build a groundbreaking supply chain for ocean-bound plastics in Haiti and set an industry-leading goal to use 30% post-consumer recycled content plastic in its Personal Systems and Print product portfolio by 2025.
It’s not enough to simply check a box and move on. For HP it’s about creating technology that is truly in the service of humanity. It’s about always aspiring to produce something beyond products and profits. Together with its partners, HP is leading a sustainability revolution fueled by technology. Afterall, that is what innovation is all about — finding solutions that benefit our business and society as a whole.
HP is transforming its entire business to drive a more efficient, circular and low-carbon economy in a number of ways – from sourcing ocean-bound plastics in Haiti and using recycled and ocean-bound plastics in its products, to driving greater employee participation through embracing a culture that values sustainability, HP is setting the stage for radical change.
This year, HP built upon its 2016 commitment to make Original HP ink cartridges using plastic from bottles collected in Haiti by joining NextWave Plastics, a collaborative, open-source initiative dedicated to developing the first global network of ocean-bound plastics supply chains. With the support of NextWave, HP invested US$2 million in a new washing line in Haiti that will expand its ocean-bound plastic supply chain, allowing it to produce cleaner, higher quality recycled plastic locally for use in HP products, and create additional income and learning opportunities for Haitians.
HP strives to pave the way for others to better understand the issue of ocean-bound plastics while driving gender equality and economic equity as women are often on the front lines of dealing with mismanaged waste, yet they typically lack power when it comes to enacting important policies and priorities. In partnership with the University of Georgia’s Dr. Jenna Jambeck and Dr. Christine Cuomo, HP is sponsoring groundbreaking research in Haiti that will examine the important contributions of women in waste management and recycling. This research is currently underway and will be released later this year and will be a foundational study of gender, ocean-bound plastics, and sustainable waste management. It will serve as a basis for future projects involving informal waste collection, the development of ocean-bound plastic supply chains, and gender equality worldwide.
HP made great strides in its work in Haiti this year, and even took it a step further by implementing the ocean-bound and recycled plastics it has collected into its products including its Original HP ink cartridges, the HP EliteDisplay E273d Docking Monitor and the HP Elite Dragonfly – the world’s first notebook with ocean-bound plastics.
These accomplishments not only enable HP’s customers to create a more sustainable future – but its employees too. Sustainable Impact is deeply embedded in HP’s DNA, and 90% of HP employees strongly agree HP is socially and environmentally responsible. Employees are engaged in bettering the environment and their communities, contributing a collective 284,000 hours of their time to volunteerism through 2018, including activities to create a better future for the planet. This included the recent HP Global Shoreline Cleanup, where 1500+ employees collected nearly 19,000 pounds of waste from local beaches, parks and areas surrounding 26 HP campuses globally.
Through these actions, HP is sending a clear signal: it’s committed to making a sustainable impact on the planet, its people and communities.
HP’s efforts have generated impressive and impactful results. To date, HP has sourced over one million pounds – more than 35 million plastic bottles or more than 450 metric tonnes – of ocean-bound plastics from Haiti for its products. Additionally, in 2018, HP used 7% recycled content across its print and personal systems portfolio and continued to identify innovative ways to incorporate recycled materials into its products.
As the world’s first notebook with ocean-bound plastics, the HP Elite Dragonfly’s speaker enclosure component is made with 50% percent post-consumer recycled plastic including 5% ocean-bound plastics. To ensure HP’s ocean-bound plastics efforts continue to scale, HP has committed to including ocean-bound plastic material in the all new HP Elite and HP Pro desktop and notebook computers launching in 2020.
And to that end, HP is meeting and exceeding customer expectations. In 2018, HP's Sustainable Impact programs drove more than $972 million of new revenue, a 35% increase versus prior year. Employees value HP’s contributions – 90% strongly agree HP is environmentally and socially responsible – and the company's actions and culture are making an impact beyond the workplace.
