Climate change is one of the most significant and urgent issues facing business and society today. The science is clear, the impacts are serious, and the time to act is now.

At HP, we believe climate action is not just our responsibility—it is vital to the longevity of our business. We are working to ensure our business is resilient by innovating to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapting to an evolving global business and regulatory environment. We recognize that our customers, investors, and employees expect us to do our part to address the climate crisis and make our business more sustainable.

The manufacturing, delivery, and use of HP products and solutions require a substantial amount of energy and natural resources. HP was the first global IT company to publish a full carbon footprint, which covers our entire value chain, from our suppliers¹ to our operations and our millions of customers worldwide. We continually measure and manage our environmental footprint across the value chain, pursuing areas of improvement. 

Efforts in supply chain

Our production and nonproduction suppliers are essential partners as we work to drive net zero carbon and improved resource efficiency throughout the value chain. For more than a decade, we have worked closely with our suppliers to improve their environmental programs and report progress transparently.

We request that 98% of our production suppliers (by spend), as well as strategic nonproduction suppliers, disclose key qualitative and quantitative environmental management information and impacts through our CDP Supply Chain membership. This includes GHG emissions and goals, total and renewable energy use, water withdrawal, climate and water risks, and governance.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Through our Sustainable Impact Scorecard, we set requirements for our production suppliers, including related to topics including energy use and GHG emissions performance and disclosure. In 2023, we continued engaging with these suppliers to drive positive change, for example by providing training outlining our environmental expectations. 

We continue to deepen engagement with suppliers representing GHG emissions “hot spots” in our supply chain—such as LCD panels, printed circuit board assemblies, and memory and storage—identified through life cycle assessments (LCAs) and directly collected data. In 2023, this included procurement-driven workshops with these suppliers. Focus areas included setting science-based targets and increasing renewable energy use, energy management systems, and waste reduction.

To ensure our suppliers’ climate action ambitions align with our own, since 2018, through our Sustainable Impact Scorecard, we have required them to set science-based GHG emissions–reduction targets. In 2023, we worked closely with final assembly suppliers, suppliers of high–GHG impact commodities and others who make our personal systems, print hardware, and printing supplies, to support them to engage with SBTi and set validated targets.

Since 2018, we have worked with suppliers—in particular final assembly, suppliers of high–impact commodity suppliers—to encourage renewable energy sourcing and reporting. Beyond advances in our own supply chain, during 2023 we also worked with other organizations to accelerate cross-sector improvements:

• We joined the 2023 CDP Science-Based Targets Campaign (as we have since 2021) and co-signed a letter to a large number of companies—including many in our supply chain—urging them to set SBTi-validated GHG emissions–reduction goals
• To support sourcing of renewable energy in countries where our suppliers operate, we engaged with the U.S. Department of State through the Clean Energy Demand Initiative (CEDI). This initiative connects companies to send demand signals and governments to share policy updates and plans that enable corporate renewable energy procurement
• Since 2021, HP has been closely engaged in the development of robust new standards for the EPEAT^® eco label, which will apply to our printing and personal systems products. The EPEAT^® climate criteria were published in May 2023, with additional criteria still in development. These standards will include supply chain environmental criteria, which will influence the IT industry to address supply chain GHG emissions, water use, and waste

More broadly, through CDP, our production suppliers reported savings of 37 million tonnes of CO₂e and US$794 million from reduction initiatives implemented in 2022.² This demonstrates the scale of ongoing GHG emissions–reduction activities throughout our production supply chain, regardless of whether or not they are driven by HP’s engagement.

Product transportation

To improve efficiency, cut costs, and reduce negative environmental impacts, we work to optimize our logistics network by consolidating shipments, identifying new routes, and shipping directly to customers or local distribution centers. 

HP is engaged in several programs to reduce GHG emissions across our logistics network. We continue to use sustainable logistics fuels for some shipments from Asia to the United States and Europe, and we expanded the program to some routes to Latin America beginning in 2022. We are also exploring opportunities to implement sustainable aviation fuel for airfreight shipments.

We require product transportation suppliers to use the Global Logistics Emissions Council Framework to provide standardized calculations and data that account for variation in different locations. To drive progress across the industry and beyond, we are working with the Clean Cargo Working Group, the Smart Freight Centre, the International Council on Clean Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) SmartWay program.

HP continues to use SmartWay partners as first choice for our products shipped by truck in the United States and Canada. The program aims to help improve road transportation efficiency and reduce GHG and other emissions.

Our work towards reducing packaging size and weight also has the potential to decrease GHG emissions associated with product transportation.

Efforts in operations

At our 216 sites in 57 countries around the world, we are taking action to reduce our GHG emissions, energy consumption, water withdrawal, and waste generation. 

Most of our GHG emissions from operations are related to the energy used to power our facilities. To save money, drive progress toward our goals, and reduce our climate impacts, our strategy is to:

• Aggressively reduce energy consumption through optimization and efficiency projects
• Increase on-site generation of renewable power
• Procure off-site renewable power, including renewable energy credits (RECs), utility supplier green power options, and power purchase agreements (PPAs)

In 2023, we implemented 15 low-cost operational changes, 29 energy-conservation projects, and other projects that are expected to reduce HP’s annual energy consumption by 10,771 MWh. Examples of these projects include: 

• Sandston, Virginia, United States: We undertook an LED lighting upgrade at one of the two sites at this location, which increased the site’s lighting intensity while saving 33% of its total annual electricity consumption. The project will pay for itself in 2.4 years, and is projected to save 555 MWh annually 
• Boise, Idaho, United States: We replaced two 25-year-old chillers with two new, high-efficiency chillers. This upgrade is expected to save 1,269 MWh of energy annually—8% of the site’s consumption

By 2025, we aim to use 100% renewable electricity to power our global operations. In 2023, we procured and generated 293,289 MWh of renewable electricity globally (81% wind, 14% solar, and 5% other)

Building on previous renewable energy initiatives, such as the solar-covered roof at our Palo Alto, California, United States, headquarters (a feed-in tariff project), HP continued to pursue several renewable energy projects during 2023. Completed in January 2023, our on-site solar PPA in Barcelona, Spain, provides 9% of the electricity consumed at that location. The HP-Poly manufacturing facility in Tijuana, Mexico, includes an HP-owned on-site solar system that provides approximately 1,215 MWh of electricity annually, equivalent to 35% of the site’s consumption. 

HP has sites in many energy markets where direct procurement of renewable energy is either not allowed or is not financially feasible. In these cases, HP is investigating virtual PPAs to support our renewable energy goals and to help add new renewable energy to decarbonize power grids around the world.

Our goal is to reduce GHG emissions from HP-owned or leased auto fleet vehicles by 25% by 2025, compared to 2015. We also aim to achieve a 100% EV company fleet by 2030³. We started our first EV fleet pilots in the Netherlands in 2020 and have since introduced EV choices in 18 countries.

To decrease emissions associated with business travel, we provide employees with low-impact travel choices through collaborating with travel providers, planning tools, and transportation alternatives. We understand that much of our work can be achieved remotely and encourage virtual meeting options to help reduce costs and emissions without sacrificing productivity. 

In 2021, we joined the Eco-Skies Alliance program to support the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and we remained involved in 2023. Of our total business air travel footprint of 32,500 tonnes of CO₂e in 2023, we mitigated 900 tonnes through SAF purchases. This partnership highlights HP’s commitment to collaborations that signal support of sustainable innovation in the corporate travel industry.

Efforts in products and solutions

Energy consumed by our products during use is among the largest contributors to our carbon and water footprints. To help our customers decrease energy consumption and GHG emissions, we design for energy efficiency and offer convenient, service-based solutions. Our innovative offerings are designed to deliver increased value to customers through reduced environmental impact and capital costs. We use multiple metrics to assess progress and drive improvement.

HP uses LCA and product carbon footprinting (PCF)⁴ to quantify the environmental impacts of our products, analyze possible alternatives, and target product performance improvements that deliver value to our customers and our business. We have conducted LCAs and PCFs of hundreds of products over the last several years, spanning our product portfolio. As we develop and expand our service-based models (which we refer to as circular business solutions), we will continue to study and quantify the potential they have to reduce environmental impacts and drive progress toward a more circular and net zero carbon economy. In 2023, we:

• Conducted or updated 186 LCAs of DesignJet printers, scanners, enterprise printers, and cartridges
• Completed 142 PCFs of new business HP desktops, notebooks, tablets, workstations, thin clients, all-in-one computers, displays, and accessories
• Made improvements to policies and processes to enhance data management, traceability, consistency, and reliability
• Began developing new LCA tools to report on accessories, which grew in volume following our acquisition of Poly in 2022 and HyperX in 2021 
• Introduced the HP Indigo Carbon Footprint Calculator, which provides insights into the CO₂e emissions of each HP Indigo press printing mode by analyzing factors such as material consumption and energy use

From 2019 through 2023, the energy consumption of our personal systems products has dropped by 21%, on average. This includes average estimated reductions in energy consumption of 33% in notebooks, 43% in workstations, and 9% in displays.⁵ Ongoing design improvements, including more efficient CPUs, panels, and power supplies, have contributed to continued reductions in the typical energy consumption of our notebooks and workstations.

The HP Color LaserJet Enterprise MFP 5800 Series uses an improved energy-efficient design that meets EPEAT® Gold, ENERGY STAR®, and Blue Angel⁶ criteria. It uses HP TerraJet Toner supplies, which consume less energy⁷ and generate less heat than predecessor toner (used in CLJ Enterprise MFP 39% decrease in absolute GHG emissions from product energy use compared to 2019 M578 products). The design also incorporates 8% postconsumer recycled content plastic in the chassis and 35% postconsumer recycled content plastic in the toner cartridges.⁸ On average, the series uses 78% less plastic in its cartridge packaging than previous generations. ⁹

HP’s new DesignJet T850 and T950 series printers feature the innovative Energy Scheduler, which helps to reduce energy use by at least 60% through automatic power cycling.

HP Indigo’s new printing technology, LEP^x, delivers the renowned digital print quality and versatility of HP Indigo at analog print speeds. This empowers packaging converters and print service providers to better meet customer productivity and sustainability demands by facilitating just-in-time production for jobs of any run length. LEP^x provides the speed and operational efficiency required to profitably handle a higher volume of jobs per day, incorporating variable graphics and content. With LEP^x, high throughput and productivity can be achieved virtually independently of the number of color separations, reducing the carbon footprint of multiple color jobs. ¹⁰

The HP Indigo V12 Digital Press, a label press that is the first HP Indigo product featuring LEP^x technology, can potentially replace two to four flexo machines¹¹ for mid-length to long print jobs. A notable benefit of the press is its capability to save substantial amounts of media by eliminating flexo printing waste.¹² This is essential since media is the main contributor to the carbon footprint of print jobs. By transforming more print jobs from analog to digital, brands can reduce inventory obsolescence by utilizing agile production and just-in-time ordering.

Circularity

Design is a crucial step for embedding circularity into HP products and services, as 80% of a product’s impact is determined at the design phase.¹³ We apply design principles that improve the environmental performance of our products across their life cycles. In 1992, we developed our Design for the Environment program (now called Design for Circularity) to formally consider factors impacting sustainability performance throughout the product design and development phases.

We use a science-based approach to evaluate our products, identify and prioritize improvement opportunities, and set goals. Through our membership in the Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP), in 2023 we provided input to the revision of the CEP roadmap to address barriers and identify enablers related to the industry’s transition to a circular economy. We also participated in the recycled steel working group to explore ways to increase the use of recycled steel in electronics.

Among our main design priorities, we work to increase the use of recycled and renewable materials; practice responsible chemistry; enhance product repairability, reusability, longevity, and recyclability; continually improve product energy efficiency; and build in accessibility features.

Product design and development operations for our personal computing products, LaserJet Enterprise Solutions, and InkJet Printing Solutions are ISO 14001 certified. We conduct internal compliance audits and benchmark against industry best practices on an ongoing basis.

Materials

HP proactively identifies and evaluates materials and chemicals used in our products and throughout our supply chain. We prioritize materials and chemicals for replacement, or for transition to a recycled or renewable alternative, based on environmental, social, and supply impacts. 

For more than two decades, HP has worked to move the electronics industry toward safer alternatives to materials of concern. We continually assess published lists of substances of concern, customer preferences, and emerging regulations. We review the materials used in HP products to evaluate potential impacts on human health or the environment. This approach also improves product circularity by supporting reusability and recyclability.

We are both a supplier and a user of recovered materials, incorporating recycled and recyclable content into new HP products. This helps to accelerate global market development for recovered and recycled materials in order to support progress toward a circular economy. More than 95% of home and office printers, laptops, notebooks, displays, and workstations shipped to customers in 2023 included recycled materials.¹⁴

We largely focus on increasing recycled plastic use, due to issues related to plastic waste and pollution. During 2023, we used a total of 34,400 tonnes of postconsumer recycled content plastic in HP products, equivalent to 18% of overall plastic use. For personal systems, this included an increase from 22% of overall plastic use in 2022 to 27% in 2023.

Metal also plays an increasingly important role in our approach to circularity, especially since metals make up a large portion of the materials in our personal systems and print products. We continue to expand the use of recycled metal in our products. We are working with suppliers to source metals with a high proportion of recycled content for some personal systems products, including up to 75% recycled content aluminum, up to 90% recycled content magnesium, and up to 15% recycled content steel. These metals are more likely to be recyclable through existing infrastructure than materials such as carbon fiber, and still meet the demanding industrial design requirements of our products.

HP focuses on sourcing renewable¹⁵ materials in the interest of protecting ecosystems and resources for future generations. We strive to ensure that our paper and fiber-based packaging are derived from recycled or certified sustainable content, and to counteract deforestation related to non-HP paper used by our printing products and print services. We are also working to eliminate the use of single-use plastic packaging by shifting to fiber-based packaging.

We continually explore the use of other renewable materials. For example, we are evaluating the sustainability attributes of plastics that incorporate biobased feedstocks in place of fossil fuels and have created criteria to guide the product-development teams as they choose materials for new products. Every bio-feedstock must be individually evaluated using an LCA to fully understand its environmental and social impacts and confirm that it is less impactful than the material it would replace.

In 2023, we used 840,300 tonnes¹⁶ of materials in our products and packaging, 4% less than in 2022. Of the materials we used in 2023, 40% by weight were circular (reused, recycled, or renewable).

Forests

Our goal to counteract deforestation for non-HP paper used in our products and print services by 2030¹⁷ is part of our plan to continue investments in forest restoration, protection, and other initiatives under our forest positive strategy. 

HP’s path to forest positive focuses on five key areas:

• Engineering efficient paper consumption—Through the design of our printers and software, we enable thoughtful paper consumption and help customers print more responsibly
• Responsibly sourcing HP paper and packaging—We require that all HP-brand paper and paper-based packaging be certified, recycled, or conform with HP’s Sustainable Paper and Wood Policy. We continue to give preference to suppliers that demonstrate a commitment to sustainable sourcing, and prioritize those that use products certified by the the FSC^®,¹⁸ followed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC™), or other sources that comply with our Sustainable Paper and Wood Policy
• Protecting, managing, and restoring forests—Our ambitious vision for forests extends to the impact on forests from paper produced by other brands that is used in HP products. Our partnership with WWF is one of the industry’s first to address forest impacts beyond our own supply chain. WWF also maintains an advisory role in HP’s Sustainable Forests Collaborative (SFC)
• Supporting development of science-based targets—In partnership with WWF, HP piloted a new methodology to calculate its forest footprint and measure positive impact 
• Influencing industry partners to inspire forest positive action—The HP SFC brings paper manufacturers together in a single consortium to share research, support one another’s efforts, and report progress. Each SFC company is committed to responsible sourcing and supply chains, and shares data on the volume of sustainable materials in its operations

Please find HP’s Climate Action Policy Position at https://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=c05320887.

For further information on our climate strategy, collaboration efforts and performance, please see the 2023 HP Sustainable Impact Report at: www.hp.com/go/report.

¹ Carbon and water footprint data presented in this section related to our production suppliers (except for HP-brand paper) is calculated using product life cycle assessment (LCA)-based estimates for materials extraction through manufacturing and product transportation. Production supplier GHG emissions and water withdrawal data presented in Supply chain environmental impact is based on a different methodology.

² These are the total GHG emissions reductions and financial savings reported by suppliers through CDP, not amounts calculated by or attributable to HP.

³ In 2023 we updated our definition of EV to align with the automotive industry and our commitment to EV100. As a result, plug-in hybrid EVs are now considered part of our EV fleet.

⁴ We conduct PCFs, a subset of LCAs, of business HP desktops, notebooks, tablets, workstations, thin clients, all-in-one computers, and displays to better understand the performance of individual products and our overall portfolio. These estimate total GHG emissions associated with a product over its lifetime and include emissions from materials extraction, manufacturing, distribution, use, and end-of-life management. To assess and report our complete personal systems PCF, we extrapolate these results to cover 99% of overall personal systems product sales (by unit and by revenue) during the reporting year.

⁵ The average energy consumption of HP products was estimated annually between 2019 and 2023 using high-volume products for all product lines including notebook, desktop, all-in-one, workstation, and thin client computers, as well as displays. Averages are calculated using the most heavily loaded ENERGY STAR configuration as a representative for individual platforms, weighted by products sold. Desktops, Notebooks, Workstations, and Displays data is averaged performance data for multiple product lines weighted by units sold.

⁶ HP voluntarily designs and tests its printing systems to prevent emissions that exceed Blue Angel and EPEAT eco-label guidelines. EPEAT registered where applicable. EPEAT registration varies by country. See http://www.epeat.net for registration status by country.

⁷ HP calculations based on ENERGY STAR® normalized TEC data in HP TerraJet Cartridges compared to predecessors.

⁸ Postconsumer recycled is based on the definition set in the EPEAT® standard for imaging equipment, IEEE 1680.2, and is expressed as a percentage of total weight of plastic.

⁹ Plastic reduction in packaging calculated based on packaging weight compared to predecessors.

¹⁰ Electricity measurement indicates consistent consumption up to six-color prints at 120 meters/minute. The carbon footprint associated with electricity usage is unchanged regardless of the number of colors, ranging from one to six.

¹¹ Based on HP analysis of customer operations data collected during 2023–2024, the number of jobs producible in one shift on an HP Indigo V12 Digital Press is two to four times higher than using a flexo press. This is due to the speed disparity between the HP Indigo V12 Digital Press and average flexo presses, as well as higher HP Indigo V12 Digital Press utilization.

¹² HP analysis of customer operations data, as well as HP financial analysis, shows that the production of 200 jobs/month on a flexo press can generate about 13,000 square meters of media waste. By shifting jobs from analog to digital, the HP Indigo V12 Digital Press reduces waste substantially compared to flexo printing.

¹³ 2020, European Commission, A new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe

¹⁴ Recycled materials includes recycled plastic and/or recycled metal.

¹⁵ As defined in the GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards, renewable material is “material derived from plentiful resources that are quickly replenished by ecological cycles or agricultural processes, so that the services provided by these and other linked resources are not endangered and remain available for the next generation.”

¹⁶ 2023 data does not include the following products or packaging for these products: some personal systems accessories and print accessories sold separately.

¹⁷ Fiber by weight will be 1) certified to rigorous third-party standards, 2) recycled, or 3) balanced by forest restoration, protection, and other initiatives through HP’s Forest Positive Framework.

¹⁸ HP trademark license code FSC-C017543; see fsc.org. Not all FSC-certified products are available in all regions; look for logo on pack.