HP's New Eco-Friendly Printer Push

HP (NYSE: HPQ) kicked off a new effort Thursday to expand its green computing influence with the release of a series of products, tools, services and initiatives to help customers reduce their environmental impact when imaging and printing.

The product releases target the differing needs of enterprise, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), consumers, and graphic arts customers. These needs range from fleet management solutions to help enterprises save power and paper to printer management solutions to help consumers save energy, paper and supplies. Other products give SMBs environmental solutions that don't cost extra and graphic artists ways to save money while reducing their environmental footprint.

"HP is creating a green computing strategy . Each segment has a different take on the environmental objectives," Tom Codd, director of marketing for HP's global enterprise business, told TechNewsWorld.

Labeling Campaign

HP introduced the Eco Highlights label, intended to assist customers in identifying HP products with environmentally preferable features. A new HP inkjet printer made almost entirely from recycled materials, in addition to two HP LaserJet printers, will be the first products to use the label. HP will adopt this new product line company-wide across certain product segments.

HP also announced new enterprise imaging and printing offerings as part of the HP Eco Solutions program. This new product line will help customers identify environmental initiatives, products, solutions and services designed with the environment in mind. These products include an HP Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing, an Auto-On/Auto-Off energy-saving feature for LaserJet printers and an Eco Printing Assessment service.

These new offerings join a suite of existing tools and product features from HP's Imaging and Printing Group that the company is using to enable customers to save power and paper, Codd said.

Environmental Goals

HP announced four environmentally focused goals. The first is to improve energy efficiency of HP LaserJet and Inkjet printers 40 percent by 2011. The company previously reached a goal of 30 percent reduction set for 2005.

The second goal is to ensure that 100 percent of HP's consumer photo paper will derive from sustainable forest certified suppliers in 2009. This policy spans both papers sold to customers and those used by HP in packaging, collateral and office-printing.

The third goal, with a target date of 2010, is to increase the use of recycled material in the company's inkjet products by three times the level reached last year.

HP's fourth environmental goal is to recycle more than 250 million HP inkjet and LaserJet cartridges by the fall of 2008. This is an increase of 25 percent in less than one year, Codd said.

Shrinking Footprint

Enterprise customers can decrease their carbon footprint by 30 percent using its Eco Solutions Tools and Services, according to HP. For instance, HP's Carbon Footprint Calculator for printing allows customers to compare the carbon footprint of their existing printer fleet to that of new, optimized fleets in order to understand how they can reduce their impact on the environment.

HP designed the calculator to assess printer energy and paper use, the carbon impact of usage and associated monetary costs based on geographical energy assessments. Customers may access the calculator online or work directly with HP to build a baseline annualized estimate of their printer fleet's carbon footprint.

HP's LaserJet Power Consumption Calculator is similarly targeted. It enables SMB customers to compare product-specific energy data from popular HP LaserJet printers with data from competitors' products. This calculator also allows customers to compare new HP LaserJet products with older HP models to illustrate energy savings in kilowatt hours and estimated dollars achieved by upgrading older devices.

Other Eco Tools

A new addition to HP's existing suite of services is the HP Eco Printing Assessment, designed to help customers measure their energy consumption, paper usage and carbon emissions and recommend ways to use less energy and paper, recycle more and reduce the impact of imaging and printing.

HP Eco Highlights is a label that summarizes features that reduce the environmental impact of a product, tool or service, such as energy use and recyclability. HP will use the label across all of its product categories.

HP's Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology will help customers improve energy efficiency by up to 50 times, the company said. It enables a printer to go into a deep sleep mode, thus using less than one watt of power, according to Codd.

New Printers

HP introduced three new printers as the first products to feature the HP Eco Highlights label. Customers will be able to locate the Eco Highlights label on packaging, the Web and in data sheets.

The HP Deskjet D2545 Printer is the company's first printer made almost entirely from recycled plastic material. It contains 83 percent recycled plastics and uses HP 60 cartridges, which are molded from recycled plastic resins collected through the HP Planet Partners program and other sources such as water bottles.

This printer is Energy Star qualified and features HP Smart Web Printing, which optimizes Web printing by letting users combine portions of numerous Web pages onto one page. The HP Deskjet D2545 Printer is currently available for a retail price of US$49.

HP plans to introduce a printer this summer that will feature recycled plastic derived from HP's "closed loop" plastic recycling system, which incorporates a variety of post-consumer recycled plastics, from HP inkjet cartridges to water bottles.

HP also introduced the HP LaserJet P4015x, LaserJet P4515x and LaserJet P4515xm printers. These printers also feature the HP Eco Highlights label.