CSR in Europe, Middle East and Africa : climate change

Blog Action Day: Climate Change

jeanne2007 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:23:00 GMT

For the third consecutive year, our blog is participating in the Blog Action Day. The idea of the Blog Action Day is to encourage bloggers all over the world to post an entry on the same topic on the same day to raise awareness. The motto is: One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.

After last year’s topic on poverty (read our blog entry here), we are back with an environmental issue: Climate Change. Climate Change has been at the top of the agenda for many years and this is why: Climate Change constitutes environmental, economic and social risks. But there are also opportunities, especially for businesses that are committed to finding ways to alleviate climate change.

As a technology company we look at the environmental impact of our operations, the life cycle of our products and how we can help our customers reduce their carbon footprint. Let me highlight some of our latest eco solutions products and services to give you an example of how we do that. With our Eco Solutions programme, we offer more than 115 products that feature our HP Eco Highlights label. Our DeskJet D2545, for example, is made of 83% recycled plastic material. This version also uses 40% less energy than its predecessor. For an overview, have a look at our Eco Solutions Website.

Did you know that saving 1,000 business flights between London and New York for one person can prevent more than 1,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions? It also saves around $2 million in airfares. HP Halo Videoconferencing System offers an alternative to business travel and, at HP, we use it wherever we can to reduce our carbon footprint. By offering Halo as a service to our business customers, we help them reduce their footprint too. Believe me, it feels like being in the same room with your colleagues who might be in the U.S. or China. You can connect up to four Halo rooms simultaneously. I try to use it wherever I can because it saves my time, my colleagues’ time and most of all it saves greenhouse gas emissions. To get an impression of HP’s Halo Telepresence and Videoconference effects on the environment, take a look here.

HP has also just launched SkyRoom, which brings videoconferencing right to your laptop in your office. SkyRoom is a software which enables the user to have live, real-time conversations in instant face-to-face meetings. But that’s not all. SkyRoom also allows users to share videos and presentations with each other. It actually nearly resembles a normal business meeting with your colleagues, except that you do not have to travel or invest hundreds of Euros. Soon this software will be pre-installed on several business desktops and workstations. So, with HP SkyRoom, videoconferencing becomes an affordable alternative to business travel. For more information on this, have a look at the website: www.hp.com/go/hpskyroom.

Technology advances quickly, doesn’t it? It does not only make our lives easier, but it also helps us to reduce our impact on the environment. As a single company, I think we are already making good progress in helping to alleviate climate change. But we must remember: there is still a long way to go and we will have to fundamentally change the way we live and work to help avoid the dangers of climate change.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change – call for signatories

ulrikehaug — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:59:00 GMT

In preparation for the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December, the Prince of Wales’s Corporate Leaders’ Group on Climate Change (CLG) has launched the sign-up process of the Copenhagen Communiqué on Climate Change. Gary Elliott, Vice-President of Global Citizenship, HP, has endorsed this statement from the business community. The communiqué is a message to governments stating that a large part of the business community calls for an ‘ambitious, robust and equitable global deal on climate change’.

So far, more than 130 global companies have signed the Communiqué. The CLG hopes to reach 500+ companies from across the globe. The deadline for signatures is Friday 11th September 2009. So. if you work in a business that supports the goals of the Communiqué, why not grab this chance to sign up?

Ulrike Haug
CSR Stakeholder Programs

WWF video: ‘Let the clean economy begin’

ulrikehaug — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:32:00 GMT

I just came across a video by WWF called 'Let the clean economy begin'. It talks about the business opportunities that arise for companies that strive to be leaders in a low carbon economy. They also highlight the companies that have joined ‘Climate Savers’, a programme by WWF that encourages large companies to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Collectively, the companies have pledged to reduce 50 million tonnes of CO2 emissions by next year.

Some of you might also recognize my colleague Pierre Delforge, who appears in a brief interview.

Have a look at the video and let me know what you think. There’s also a website about the Clean Economy campaign with case studies by the companies that joined ‘Climate Savers’.

Ulrike Haug, CSR Stakeholder Programmes, HP EMEA

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Transforming the business model: the environmental case for digital printing

Jean-PierreLeCalvez — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:04:00 GMT

Travelling in the Metro today made me notice how many Parisians read books—rather than newspapers—on their way to work. Ballpark calculation: there were probably five books for every three newspapers in the train carriage. Quite the opposite from London, where the majority of commuters lose themselves behind newspapers (free ones for the great majority). But it brought me back to some numbers I read not long ago: did you know that more than 30 percent of printed books are never sold and eventually destroyed and re-pulped? And that roughly ten percent of newspaper printing is simply wasted?

But more on that shortly.

I’ve been following last week’s environment news closely, as have many others at HP. Sustainability is now integral to every part of our business, and these updates are particularly timely: not only are we seeing significant returns on HP’s own environmental goals and commitments; we’re also seeing the uptake of sustainable practices by customers really hitting an upward curve. Economic downturn or not, businesses continue to invest in green IT, hitting compliance targets but also realizing significant bottom-line benefits. Good environmental practices simply make for good business. The majority of our larger customers now have systematic environment policies in place, and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are quickly catching up. Many of the HP initiatives announced in the last few days are backed by strong customer demand for tools and advice that can help them ‘go green’ at a low cost—and that’s significant.

Last week’s news was also big for printing. One of the announcements that caught my attention was our work around the SMART 2020 report. Published recently by the Climate Group, this report quantified the carbon emissions of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector based on growth projections through the year 2020, and examined where the industry could enable emission reductions across various areas. At HP we set out to evaluate the report’s findings and apply its premises specifically to printing. The results were revelatory. We estimated, for example, that the carbon footprint of printing was something close to 850 million tonnes in C02 equivalents.

The opportunities to reduce this impact are huge. We are addressing this in multiple ways—investing in green technology and R&D, driving resource efficiency straight into print hardware and consumables, and better educating buyers with more robust product labelling and guidance, amongst others. But the bigger picture is about the transition from analog to digital printing, which is having a profound impact on the print business across the board.

When we think of printing, we mostly think of office or home printing. This is the bedrock of digital printing: the printing of documents from digital files. Yet digital printing represents less than ten percent of printed paper volumes worldwide. All the rest is printed on offset—analog—technology. This includes most of the newspapers, magazines and books that comprise over half of the paper volume used in printing around the world. Huge set-up costs mean that offset processes require printing in large batches in order to be economically viable. The result? You heard it: up to 30 percent of traditional book stock is unsold and eventually re-pulped, up to 11 percent of newspaper printing is waste and 20-30 percent of marketing collateral from offset printing methods is sitting on shelves, discarded or rendered obsolete before use.

Digital processes are driving nothing less than a total transformation of printing and the workflow processes linked to it—from data capture through to storage, distribution and output. On-demand digital publishing enables printing when and where it is needed, and in the quantity needed—vastly reducing the cost of waste, transport, warehousing and outdated inventory. Variable data printing allows for rapid prototyping of documents as well as customization of print media that creates efficiencies and makes materials more effective and impactful. From the ‘print and distribute’ model of yore the industry now shifts to ‘distribute and print’, with printing carried out close to where it is needed. Shorter-run printing becomes economically viable, transforming the business models of print service providers (PSPs) and reducing waste associated with make-ready and change-over in traditional printing operations.

HP is making a concerted push to drive an industry transition from analog to digital printing. We estimate that, from this transition alone, the opportunity exists to reduce the impact of printing by 251 million tonnes, CO2 equivalents, by the year 2020. To provide perspective, this is nearly equivalent in size to the impact of the entire telecommuting industry. The opportunity is huge and we’re greatly excited.

There are a few calls to action here. Vendors like HP need to continue investing in technology and driving training and education around the benefits of digital printing. For Print Service Providers, it’s about implementing low-waste business models based on shorter runs, and pursuing value-add business through customized content. Print buyers should look to include digital printing in environmental purchasing guidance and specifications, and adopt print-on-demand strategies to avoid warehousing and obsolescence.

Now back to Parisians preferring their books over their newspapers: Does that make us more cultured or less informed?

Jean-Pierre Le Calvez

Vice President, Marketing, Imaging and Printing Group EMEA

Financial Times, Forum for the Future and HP announce winner of Climate Change Challenge

ulrikehaug — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:48:00 GMT

What has black cardboard on the inside, a silver foil-covered outer box and can boil 10 litres of water in two hours, using only the sun’s rays? Right, it’s a solar cooker and a special one at that.

The Kyoto Box solar cooker by John Brohmer won the Climate Change Challenge which was sponsored by HP and organised by the Financial Times and Forum for the Future, a sustainable development charity. Among the judges were Mark Hurd, CEO, HP; Sir Richard Branson and Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC and a Nobel Prize winner, who chose the winner in conjunction with a public vote. The latter helped the Kyoto Box beat the nearly other 300 entries to the climate change challenge. You can read more about other shortlisted entries here.

I’m glad to see the prize ($75,000) go to the Kyoto box. While solar cookers have been around for some time, there is still a lot to be done to give more people access to this technology, at prices they can afford. On the Forum for the Future Blog, Shannon Carr-Shand says that this is the strength of the Kyoto Box: “What distinguishes this approach is that the cooker will be mass-produced cheaply in existing factories, the finished item is to be flat-packed for bulk transportation to end-users and it is extremely cheap at $6. The $75,000 prize money will enable Kyoto Energy to test durable, plastic versions of the cooker with 10,000 people currently burning fossil fuels to clean their water and heat their food.”

It’s great to hear from Shannon that approximately 23,000 people visited the challenge homepage to engage in the debate on how innovation can tackle climate change, as this is also the topic for an essay competition for postgraduate students that HP is supporting here in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The deadline for the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award is this Sunday, May 17. To learn more about the award that we’re supporting together with WWF and EABIS, visit the Award website.

Ulrike Haug CSR Communications, HP EMEA

Let’s power up a green IT strategy!

jeanne2007 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:51:00 GMT

I just have seen the most recent announcement made by the European Commission to power up a green IT strategy in Europe.

At HP, we have already been working on offering climate smart solutions for our customers. In 2008, together with WWF, we published a customer report to demonstrate how 1 billion tonnes of CO2 can be reduced with the help of IT solutions.

Currently, we work with Ashridge Business School and EABIS to invite students from major business schools and universities to submit their innovative ideas on how to set up management structures and internal processes to facilitate the implementation of green IT solutions within a company.

A significant number of customers are already working on green company strategies. So the support of the EU to power up green IT strategies is well connected to significant industry efforts that are already on their way.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Director of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

WWF movie on Sustainable Innovation supports Ashridge Award

ulrikehaug — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:06:00 GMT

WWF has just published a great video to support the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award. The video aims get students participating in the essay award to think differently about satisfying our needs in tomorrow’s low-carbon economy.

In his blog, Dennis Pamlin, Global Policy Advisor at WWF, says that this is probably the first ever movie that demonstrates the need to move from a product perspective to a service perspective and to drive innovation from a sustainability perspective. I think it’s very nicely done and captures well what we want students to think about when writing their essays on Sustainable Innovation. See for yourself here:

The Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award is run by Ashridge Business School and supported by EABIS, WWF and HP. It’s open to all MBA students in Europe, the Middle East and Africa as well as all master-level students at HP-linked universities. We just postponed the deadline for award entries until 3 May 2009 to allow for more Sustainable Innovation Workshops to be held by WWF across the region. To see which business schools and universities Dennis Pamlin will be visiting, go to the Ashridge website.

I attended one of the workshops at the University of St. Gallen last month. It was great to see how the MBA students in St. Gallen got very excited about the topic of sustainable innovation and started discussing their ideas of what it takes to for businesses to thrive in a low-carbon economy.

You can receive regular updates about the award by signing up to our Facebook Fan Page.Post your comments or questions about the award here!

Ulrike Haug CSR Communications, HP EMEA

Sustainable practices in IT: a sober assessment

jeanne2007 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:27:00 GMT

At the beginning of this month, Gartner, an information technology research and advisory company, and the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) published a report focusing on the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry and its commitment to fighting climate change. The assessed sustainability practices included climate change strategies within companies as well as their initiatives to support their clients in climate saving activities.

Dennis Pamlin, Global Policy Advisor, WWF, called this report a “sober assessment of the situation in the IT industry” on his blog.

The report provides a good overview of existing climate change strategies in the ICT industry. It provides highlights but it points also to things that need improvement. There are certainly some leaders in the industry with well established strong environmental programmes, while at the same time there are companies which still need guidance and which are not familiar with the most efficient ways to combat climate change - yet.

I would like to stress the word YET. Climate change is a tremendous challenge which cannot be solved easily. Together with Fujitsu, BT and IBM we scored well on all five categories (environmental basics, supply chain basics, carbon basics, carbon delivery and carbon champions). We don’t want to rest on our laurels and we must maintain our commitment. The latest news is that we disclosed our suppliers’ carbon emissions, which Karl wrote about his blog entry.

It is great to see that many companies have developed good climate change strategies and we should learn from each other.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Climate Futures report – scenarios for a climate-changed world

ulrikehaug — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:41:00 GMT

Last week, HP Labs and Forum for the Future, a renowned UK-based sustainable development organisation, announced a report called ‘Climate Futures’. Unlike many other reports on climate change that we’ve seen recently, this report doesn’t focus on narrowly on environmental impacts and geographical changes but analyses the economic, political, social and psychological consequences of climate change. It describes five possible scenarios that result from different responses to climate change. I think it’s a very interesting, sometimes unsettling read.

The report is based on consultations with 60 climate change experts from across different sectors and countries. I believe it provides organisations with a good outlook into possible futures and allows them to consider and prepare for possible changes ahead. I personally hope it will encourage organisations to think about what their role can be in creating a more positive future. We still have a choice today, but the longer we wait, the more difficult it will be.

James Goodman of Forum for the Future is one of the authors of the report and gives a good overview of the most important findings in his blog.

I’ve copied below a summary of the five possible futures that the report identifies.

Let me know what you think!

Ulrike Haug
CSR Communications
HP EMEA

FIVE POSSIBLE FUTURES IN 2030

Efficiency First. Rapid innovation in energy efficiency and novel technologies have created a low-carbon economy with little need for changes in lifestyle or business practice. Artificially-grown flesh feeds hundreds of millions, supercomputers advise governments, and eco-concrete walls protect the USA’s eastern seaboard generating power from the waves and tides.
The result is an increasingly individualistic, consumerist and fast-moving world, which relies on ever more complex systems. Some call it a golden age of technology and freedom, others a shaky house of cards at a growing risk of crashing down.

Service Transformation. Carbon is one of the most expensive commodities, businesses have shifted to selling services instead of products, and good citizens share with their neighbours. No-one owns a car – it is far too expensive – and athletes have just staged the world’s first virtual Olympics, staying at home and competing in cyberspace.

NATO is ready to go to war if necessary to enforce the 2020 Beijing Climate Change Agreement, and water shortages have already forced the abandonment of Central Australia and Oklahoma. The dramatic transformation in business has been painful, with rising unemployment in the old high-carbon sectors. Booming mega-cities are only just managing to cope and fuel poverty is a huge problem.

Redefining Progress. The global depression of 2009-18 forced governments to regulate the economy tightly and encouraged citizens to put greater priority on quality of life than on making money. Countries compete to score highest in the World Bank’s Wellbeing Index and the EU Working Time directive sets a limit of 27.5 hours a week. The trend is towards economic resilience and simpler, more sustainable lives, but ‘free-loaders’ plunder resources, several big cities have set up as ‘havens of real capitalism’ and some governments are aggressively pro-growth.

Environmental War Economy. Talks about a post-Kyoto Treaty broke down and a global pact was only signed in 2017. Governments enforced tough action to make up for lost time, reshaping their economies to focus all resources on climate change.

Civil liberties have been stripped away. In some countries you need a license to have children and, if you go over your household energy quota, the carbon monitor will turn off your appliances. Climate refugees from Bangladesh and the Pacific islands make up 18% of New Zealand’s population and are expected to boost Antarctica’s population to 3.5 million by 2040.

Protectionist World. The 2012 Climate Agreement collapsed amid accusations of cheating and undeclared power stations. Globalisation fractured into protectionist blocs as countries launched go-it-alone strategies and fought violent wars over scarce resources. Soldiers fighting for nations and businesses are waging war over oil, gas and gold in the thawing north-west passage.

Violent factions exploit the chaos to launch devastating bio-chemical attacks. Cyber-terrorists operating from safe havens in failed states have already bankrupted two multinationals. Action to mitigate climate change is all but abandoned.

Managing global supply chains and a company’s carbon footprint

jeanne2007 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:37:00 GMT

I recently read in the newsletter “McKinsey Quarterly” an interesting article about managing global supply chains.

Operations and other senior executives worldwide were asked about their supply chain strategies, goals and the factors that influence the strategies and goals and how their corporations react to these factors. The results speak for themselves: Supply chain risks are increasing and supply chain goals are hard to meet due to product and service complexity, higher energy prices and increased financial volatility.

What grasped my attention was the result that environmental concerns, like climate change seem to have only minor influences on supply chain strategies. Reducing a company’s carbon footprint is rather at the end of supply chain priorities. At the top of the list are cost reduction, improving customer service and bringing products faster to the market.

I guess the reason for this result lies in the complexity of the issue. A research report sponsored by Fujitsu shows that the majority of CIOs surveyed find carbon footprint calculations unclear and confusing. There is a disagreement on which outsourced activities should still be included in the carbon footprint calculations.

I would like to pose the question here of how you deal with the complexity of calculating your company’s carbon footprint. I am looking forward to your comments.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Global Citizenship, HP EMEA

Challenging tomorrow's leaders on Sustainable Innovation

ulrikehaug — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:36:00 GMT

At the end of last week I attended the European Academy in Society (EABIS) Annual Colloquium at Cranfield University where HP and Ashridge Business School jointly launched the Ashridge Sustainable Innovation Award. The Award is an essay competition aimed at MBA and other postgraduate students across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and is organised by Ashridge in collaboration with EABIS and supported by us and WWF.

The aim of the competition is to find the best ideas from management and other post-graduate students about how organisations can innovate to create value from the shift to a low carbon economy. The theme builds nicely on the work that we've been doing with WWF in EMEA over the past year around how IT can assist the shift to a low carbon economy. We support this Award because we want to bring our work to the academic world by encouraging students to change their mindset from seeing climate change as a risk, to seeing it as a business opportunity.

During the coming months, WWF plans to visit 10 universities across the region to promote this Award. These visits can range from stand alone events to lectures and learning sessions that can be integrated directly into educational programmes. Dennis Pamlin, Global Policy Advisor, WWF will be the one to visit the universities and as you can read on his blog, he's already looking forward to it.

We're really excited about collaborating with our three partners on this project and are looking forward to receiving essays from students about different areas of innovation. We've also created a Facebook page where students can connect with each other and start a discussion. This page can only be as good as users will make it, so if you are interested in the topic of the Award, join us on Facebook and help us start the discussion. To find us on Facebook, search for “Ashridge Award”.

I'll keep you updated on further developments with this project on our blog. To find out more about eligibility, deadlines, the high profile jury and our thoughts on the award theme, visit www.ashridge.org.uk/SustainableInnovation.

Let me know what you think about this initiative and leave a comment below.

Ulrike Haug; CSR Communications; HP EMEA

Climate change race and sprints

jeanne2007 — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:55:00 GMT

Climate change has been dominating the news for a long time now and it has to stay on the agenda for longer as an Allianz-commissioned WWF report illustrates: The report analyses the progress made by G8 countries in combating climate change and reducing CO2 emissions. The conclusion is quite sobering: some G8 countries are seriously lagging behind and even the best could be doing more.

The country-level conclusions of the report are quite interesting. The United Kingdom has a strong carbon markets approach while Germany focuses on renewable energy where the UK definitely could do more. Italy is performing well regarding energy efficiency but lacks the establishment of measures.

The report shows that all countries are performing well in certain areas but less well in other ones. The conclusion: none of the G8 countries meet required emission reductions. What a fact!

Climate change constitutes an immense challenge to all of us and we can only take the challenge if we work hand in hand. Governments should work with other governments and at the same time governments and the private sector can easily cooperate to fight climate change.

This summer we published a white paper Low Carbon IT Solutions which outlines how HP solutions can help to reduce CO2 emissions. The paper builds upon the report "The potential global CO2 reductions from ICT use: Identifying and assessing the opportunities to reduce the first billion tonnes of CO2" (click here for an Executive Summary) which was developed by Dennis Pamlin, global policy adviser at WWF Sweden. This report sheds light onto the strategic opportunities for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions that can help accelerate the reduction of CO2 emissions across different areas of the economy and goes beyond just looking at reducing the carbon footprint of IT. It provides an overview what can be done and stresses the importance of collaboration.

Despite the rather sobering results of the Allianz-WWF report, I am an optimist and I am confident that if all sectors work together, we can make a difference in the climate change race. It is a long race and there is still enough room for development and sprints. And like the relay shows us: Teamwork is really essential!

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs, HP EMEA

EuroNews Video: Save the climate with your computer

BlogArchive — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:54:00 GMT

As part of the European Commission campaign “Sustainable Energy Europe” the European Commission published a video on how to save the climate with your computer. Let me summarize the content of the video, particularly the parts in which HP played a role.

Almost half of all households in Europe have a computer or another information and technology communication (ICT) machine providing economic value but also impacting our environment. This massive use of ICT is a challenge that can be clearly turned into an opportunity - the video shows us how.

Dennis Pamlin from WWF, who is interviewed via videoconferencing, presents two projects on how CO2 emissions can be saved through ICT. He states that with activities like video conferencing, working from home or online billing, 50 million tons of CO2 emissions could be saved. The main message is that ICT creates CO2 emissions but that the sector constitutes at the same time an enormous source to reduce CO2 emissions from other industries (less business travel due to videoconferencing technology for example). The other project he introduces is HP’s work with WWF: We are working together to investigate how ICT can help to reduce 1 billion tons of CO2 emissions.

Roger Benson of Intel mentions the company’s goal of reducing its Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50 percent. The company supports initiatives like the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which consists of leading corporations which are working with WWF to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.. We just recently announced plans to join this initiative as well. I like the ambitious nature of this initiative and the related goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Amongst other goals, we pledged to reduce emissions from our operations and the use of our products by six million tons below 2005 levels by 2010..

Chandrakant Patel, HP Senior Research Fellow Enterprise Systems and Software Laboratory, indicates that we have to make sure we decrease energy consumption and material consumption. So we have to minimize the burden of ICT and at the same time maximize fundamental need it fulfills. Again a challenge, but not impossible.

The final example of how computer equipment can save the climate comes from the Scottish Telford College which uses energy efficient HP equipment which is certified with the Energy Star. The college belongs to one of the most energy efficient schools and fosters energy efficient behaviour of its students. They are impressed by the different tactics to save energy like the maximisation of sunlight, the automatic switch off/on of the lights in the room or the automatic shut down of all computers in the college in the evening. Students see how they can save energy and hopefully apply it outside their university life.

Besides improvements in reducing the energy consumption of ICT equipment it is important that each of us acts consciously to reduce the energy consumption of our equipment. On our website we collected various energy saving tips some of which are really easy to implement and can have a big impact on the energy consumption of your IT equipment. If we work from all sides – from the technology and ICT sector, and from the individual and consumer side – we can clearly turn the challenge into a great opportunity.

Jeannette Weisschuh, Head of Corporate Affairs EMEA, HP