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HP has reported good progress towards its 2030 sustainability goals. Its ambitious Amplify Impact—the sustainability support ecosystem for HP Amplify channel partners—is off to a great start in some areas. However, there is much more to do.
July 2022 Update
HP Amplify was launched in July 2020 as a replacement for the previous PartnerFirst program, laying down three foundation pillars: performance, capability, and collaboration. February 2021 saw the launch of Amplify Impact, an assessment, resource, and training program for pledging partners to access and leverage HP’s sustainability resources. We now have a progress update about the Amplify Impact program.
HP estimates that USD $3.5 billion of its new sales in 2021 were influenced by sustainability initiatives. Seeing the impact “green” activities can have on the business, HP allocated nearly USD $1 billion to eligible projects from its inaugural Sustainability Bond. Projects include “green” buildings, pollution prevention and control, eco-efficient and/or circular economy products, production technologies and processes, as well as socioeconomic advancement and empowerment.
HP Sustainable Impact Strategy is now a critical pillar of the companies’ business plan to build a stronger enterprise. HP identified three areas where it believes it can set an agenda and align to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals: climate action, human rights, and digital equity.
Climate Action
Carbon emissions, forests, and circularity all fall under this banner. HP provided us with a few goals and data-points, including achieving net zero emissions by 2040 with the target of a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions through the value chain by 2030 (compared to HP’s own 2019 benchmark). In 2021, HP’s carbon footprint was 9% less than in 2019, primarily due to energy efficiency improvements across its product range.
Counteracting deforestation is another area where HP says it can make an impact. One example provided is that, since 2020, all HP brand paper as well as paper-based packaging for home and office printers and supplies, PCs, and displays have been derived from recycled or certified sources. When you add in programs that counteract deforestation for non-HP paper, which represents 19% of HP’s footprint, it’s almost a quarter of the way to the 2030 goal of complete counteraction of deforestation of its total paper fiber footprint (which are used in products and print services).
Human Rights
This category also features some notable targets and results. Whether its 50/50 gender equality in HP leadership, the 30% of women in technical and engineering positions by 2030, or doubling the number of Black/African American executives by 2025—from a 2020 baseline, HP is making steady progress.
About 33% of director level positions are represented by women and, at the end of October 2021, women occupied 23% of engineering and technology positions globally. HP is also about a third of the way towards its 2030 goal of reaching 1 million workers passing through its empowerment programs.
HP is conducting human rights assessments of its key contracted manufacturers and plans to report on progress in 2022. We await these results with interest.
Digital Equity
Another priority is breaking down the digital divide for those prevented from accessing education, jobs, and healthcare because of the reliance on technology. HP’s goals are commendable. For example, while attempting to achieve better learning outcomes for 100 million people by 2025, HP has already reached 74.4 million with education programs and solutions. There is also the goal of contributing 1.5 million cumulative employee volunteering hours by 2025. Over 690,000 have already been donated since 2016.
HP Amplify Impact
In terms of corporate social responsibility (CSR), like many similar enterprises, HP is rightly setting its own agenda and performing positively. There was also progress to report on the roll-out of the Amplify Impact program.
Over 3,400 partners had taken a sustainability pledge, completed a self-assessment, and received a recommendation report. That is 34% of HP partners. The benchmark goal is to have 50% of partners signed up by 2025. Over 20,000 sustainability training courses have also been completed by partners and $200 million of partner sustainability deals have been recorded through the program.
What About Printing Supplies?
What is curious is what was (and was not) stated in this progress report about the parts of the company’s manufacturing and services business, which generate its significant revenues and profits. HP has made a commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in its supplies business by 2030. What performance proof points do we have about supplies sustainability in this progress report?
On the inkjet platform, Instant Ink is a critical part of the program. HP claims that a little over 80% of its inkjet cartridges contain between 45% and 70% recycled plastic. For toner products, HP discusses its EvoCycle toner cartridges. These supplies (especially Laserjet products) contain 76% reused or recycled material—but excludes parts that directly impact print quality (e.g., cleaning blade, imaging drum, developer blade, developing roller, and the charge roller). By weight, 45% of the EvoCycle cartridge contains reused or recycled materials.
There was, however, no significant new news, programs, or updates about environmental initiatives for printing supplies (or hardware) in this briefing.
Keypoint Intelligence Opinion
The scale of the work required by an enterprise such as HP to become fully sustainable is huge. It will take time. In CSR and pushing sustainability through its channel partners, HP is progressing towards its goals.
A conversation is required to discuss how enterprises in the imaging market react and adjust to the environmental needs of the planet, which challenge their core business models. CSR initiatives, goals, and recycling are unlikely to be sufficient to offset the carbon footprint of home and office printing.
Reuse and/or remanufacturing have a part to play in making our industry more circular and will help progress this journey. For HP and all the industry players, there is so much more to be done, and we’re going to need to be far more ambitious with our goals if we are to succeed.
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