How We’ll Meet Our New, Transformative Climate Action Goals at HP

By Anneliese Olson

If you have not already heard the news, we’ve just announced that by 2040, HP will achieve net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across our value chain, beginning with our supplies business achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. By 2025, we will reach carbon neutrality and will have zero waste in HP’s operations. By 2030, we will reduce our HP value chain GHG emissions by 50%(1), achieve 75% product circularity(2), and maintain zero deforestation for HP paper and paper-based packaging(3). These commitments highlight the route we are taking as a company to drive a net zero carbon, fully regenerative economy as we reduce our overall environmental footprint and create the most sustainable portfolio of products and solutions in the industry. 

This is a huge moment for HP. My heart is especially full knowing we are dedicated to accomplishing the hard but necessary work to protect our planet. But, as we all know, these commitments don’t happen in a day. Nor will they happen by HP’s efforts alone. Our goalposts are set, but only a relentless spirit of invention and external partnerships will get us there—and beyond.

As for myself and my team, whose jobs revolve around HP’s print business, this is an opportunity to do what’s never been done. Print has always been at the core of our company, and it will continue to be a platform for incredible growth and progress as we work toward these milestones. I believe three guiding principles will help us along the way:

We have to reinvent to survive. Against the backdrop of the profound challenges society faces today, all innovation must be sustainable. What I mean by that is this: If a new solution or product doesn’t actively contribute to the betterment of the planet, people and communities, it’s not actually an innovation. In recent years, HP became the world’s No. 1 printer supply recycler and achieved zero deforestation associated with HP brand paper and paper-based packaging—the first IT company to do so—because we made sustainability a nonnegotiable in our R&D process. That same ethos will apply to our ambitious, new goals.

One example of this is a pilot we’re launching this May in Germany to test a solution aimed at reducing the amount of virgin plastic in HP supplies. The program will allow a sample group of HP Instant Ink subscribers to opt-in to receive renewed cartridges. What this and other exciting projects in our pipeline have in common with the creativity that got us to where we are today is that it ties into larger, collaborative efforts. HP’s ongoing work with Lonely Whale, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the ocean, that helps us repurpose over a million, ocean-bound plastic bottles each day for Original HP Ink & Toner cartridges. Also, our partnership with the World Wildlife Fund for forest restoration and protection has proven to us that we have to innovate ourselves and with others as an ecosystem in order to succeed.

We must channel shared passions into productive partnerships. I grew up in Idaho, a state where nearly 90% of the forestland that existed in the 17th century still endures. Today, my home is in California, where the beach is just a short drive away. I’m so fortunate that my life and career have given me the opportunity to visit many modern marvels, from the Burj Khalifa in Dubai to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. Yet the feeling of standing before a soaring tree or an expansive ocean rivals them all. I know I’m not alone in valuing both innovation and preservation. HP’s newest partnerships are a testament to doing both and individually, I am striving to do the same.

HP is the first tech company to join the Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas Alliance as a member of the Steering Committee for its newest Signature Initiative: ASPPIRe (Advancing Solutions to Plastic Pollution through Inclusive Recycling). As a founding partner, we’re committed to their mission to reduce plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, create a stable market for low-value plastics in selected geographies, and increase the availability of recycled content. We are also thrilled to welcome several new companies—including Andhra Paper Limited, Crown Van Gelder, Felix Schoeller Group, International Paper Company, Lenzing Papier, and Mondi Uncoated Fine Paper—into HP’s Sustainable Forest Collaborative. As the largest open-membership non-profit organization for forests big and small, Arbor Day Foundation is joining as an advisor to the Collaborative.

Additionally, HP has just announced that it is the founding sponsor of the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) digital marketplace, a new consumer destination for all FSC certified brands and products. FSC certification is the most rigorous standard available in the marketplace, ensuring that critical forest ecosystems—and the wildlife and workers that depend upon them—are protected.

We must help customers be part of the solution. In the past year, there’s been an increase in values-based spending as more consumers commit to shopping sustainably. While I have no doubt this trend will continue, I also believe companies have a massive opportunity to get even more creative about how they involve consumers in sustainability. Making sustainable choices should be more than a transaction; it should be an experience. HP’s commitments are meant to carry over into our customers lives and businesses, helping them be better stewards of sustainability along with us. From actively engaging in product recycling efforts to using our carbon-neutral services in their own operations and supply chains and tracking their efforts with HP’s proprietary Sustainable Impact Reporting and Analytics, when customers know our values align with theirs, we can make all of our efforts go that much further.

All of this incredible momentum serves our most important goal of all and the mission that informs everything we do: to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere. With this promise of even more progress, HP will continue to demonstrate that printing and protecting our planet and people are not mutually exclusive. I, for one, could not be more excited for what’s to come.

1: As compared to 2020

2: Including recycled, reuse and packaging

3: HP’s total annual product and packaging content, by weight, will come from recycled and renewable materials and reused products and parts by 2030.