The HP Power to Change Campaign has received immense support. For that, we would like to send out a word of thanks to the people who made it possible.
You.
Especially all 32,427 of you.
Because you believed that the simple act of turning off your computer could make a difference, we proved that small changes in habits could make a big impact on the environment.
Together, we’ve made a difference globally by:
• Turning off our computers 60% of the time
• Saving 94,382 kwh of energy
• Reducing 56,895.24 kg of carbon emissions
• Taking 3774.52 cars off the road
All this in little over 6 months.
While the campaign continues to call upon people to power down their PCs for a greener tomorrow, we want to encourage you to continue building on the realizations that came from this campaign. In particular, that it is indeed possible to create ecology-friendly and sustainable lifestyles with small but significant steps.
Watch out for upcoming developments here on our blog, Facebook, and Twitter!
See you soon!
We wouldn’t have done it without your immense support.
Post by HP Power To Change team @ January 7th, 2010 02:09 pm
Recent Green Tweets from @hppowertochange
Post by HP Power To Change team @ October 28th, 2009 02:21 pmIf you have not already followed us on Twitter you’re probably missing out on some interesting information. Here’s a quick sample:
• 8 Ways to #Green a Small Space http://bit.ly/pUGIm #eco
• It is a big deal to Mark Hurd to be environmentally friendly http://bit.ly/ew8Df
• Eco-Friendly Decorating Ideas from HGTV.com http://bit.ly/4l2mnu #homes #green #eco
• Gizmodo weights in on Newsweek and Greenpeace’s green ratings on HP http://bit.ly/2Vfgb1
• A green quote from Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, nice! http://bit.ly/4fm0MU
• Pulau Semakau: S’pore’s designated landfill is also a destination for eco-travelling http://bit.ly/goOJ4
Do also join our Facebook community and download the widget today!
~HP Power To Change team
5 Simple green questions: The facts revealed
Post by HP Power To Change team @ October 19th, 2009 02:06 pmFor everyone who had their guesses at these 5 green questions from our last post, it’s now time to reveal the answers to you.
1. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), what is the leading source of waste in the office?
a. Power consumption
b. Paper
c. Coffee grounds
d. Water
Correct answer: b. EPA studies show the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year.
2. According to the EPA, how much water does it take to make a single sheet of paper?
a. 1 ounce
b. 5 ounces
c. 13 ounces
Correct answer: c. EPA further states that it takes 10 times more energy to make a sheet of paper than to print on it.
3. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), how much energy can customers save during night and weekends by turning off office equipment?
a. 20%
b. 45%
c. 66%
Correct answer: c. The DOE states that companies can save up to 66% of energy costs for office equipment just by turning the devices off nights and weekends.
4. The amount of paper a fortune 500 company could save in a year by setting duplex printing as a default with HP’s Universal Printer Driver?
a. 8 tons
b. 80 tons
c. 800 tons
Correct answer: c. An internal HP case study shows that using HP’s Universal Print Driver to configure printers for duplexing will save up to 800 tons of paper a year.
5. HP has recycled 106 million toner cartridges since the HP Planet Partners began in 1991. If those toner cartridges were lined up, they would:
a. Stretch from Montreal, Canada, to Los Angeles, CA
b. Stretch from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia
c. Stretch from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia and back
Correct answer: c. 257 million pounds (117 thousand metric tons) of LaserJet cartridges have been recycled through the HP Planet Partners Program since it began.
- HP has recycled 106 million toner cartridges since the inception of Planet Partners
- Each toner cartridge is ~ 12 inches wide (so that’s ~ 1.279 billion total inches)
- There are 63,360 inches in a mile, so that’s 20,189 miles.
- As the crow flies, it’s 9,970 miles from Montreal to Sydney.
- Round trip, that’s ~ 19,940 miles
Did you get most of the answers correct? Even if you didn’t, you are definitely now more well-informed than you were before, so give yourself a pat on the back!
~HP Power To Change team
5 simple green questions
Post by HP Power To Change team @ October 9th, 2009 05:01 pmI don’t know about you but when we saw the data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Department of Energy (DOE), it got us thinking – how would our world look like today if we all made greener choices? Let’s see how you measure up (pun intended) on this mini quiz of 5 questions:
1. According to the EPA, what is the leading source of waste in the office?
a. Power consumption
b. Paper
c. Coffee grounds
d. Water
2. According to the EPA, how much water does it take to make a single sheet of paper?
a. 29.57 ml / 1 ounce
b. 147.87 ml / 5 ounces
c. 384.46 ml / 13 ounces
3. According to the DOE, how much energy can customers save during night and weekends by turning off office equipment?
a. 20%
b. 45%
c. 66%
4. The amount of paper a fortune 500 company could save in a year by setting duplex printing as a default with HP’s Universal Printer Driver?
a. 8 tons
b. 80 tons
c. 800 tons
5. HP has recycled 106 million toner cartridges since the HP Planet Partners began in 1991. If those toner cartridges were lined up, they would:
a. Stretch from Montreal, Canada, to Los Angeles, CA
b. Stretch from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia
c. Stretch from Montreal, Canada to Sydney, Australia and back
You can put your guesses in the comment box below and we’ll post the results out on a later date. It would be interesting to see how well everyone does.
~HP Power To Change team
New Opportunities
Post by John Frey @ September 30th, 2009 09:42 amI have the opportunity to articulate HP’s environmental sustainability experiences at dozens of events each year. The events generally range from business executives and technology staffers to small business and consumer customers. Next month, I’ll have the opportunity to share with a new audience. I’ve been invited to speak at the annual AARP Conference, which takes place from October 22-24, at the Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. AARP is a non-profit, non-partisan membership organization in the United States that helps people 50 and over improve the quality of their lives. The AARP annual conference attracts over 25,000 AARP members and guests.
AARP has recognized the need to share environmental best practices with their members, especially as technology plays a bigger role in their lives. Although I’m not old enough to be an AARP member, I’m excited about the opportunity to teach their members ways to reduce their environmental impact. Power to Change will be a big part of my message. Appropriate recycling of electronic products will also be included because Windows 7 will launch the day before the conference begins.
I will be speaking at the AARP University session entitled “Saving Green While Living Green” on Friday, October 23rd, from 4 – 5 p.m. My second speaking engagement time will be sometime Saturday morning, Oct 24th. What else do you think I should include? If you had the opportunity to address thousands of 50+ year old consumers, what would you tell them? I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
P/s: You don’t have to be an AARP member to attend the event, but it will save you USD 10 on registration. To join the AARP, click here.
North American Junior Achievement Company of the Year Competition in Boston
Post by David Eichberg @ September 23rd, 2009 10:13 amI recently attended the North American Junior Achievement (JA) Company of the Year competition in Boston where some 20 companies, run by high school students, were showing their products, presenting to judges and facing off for awards. As a partner of the JA and a co-sponsor of the event, HP was there to judge and award the student company demonstrating the most responsible business practices.
Project My World accepts the HP Responsible Business Competition Award at Junior Achievement’s North America Company of the Year Competition in Boston.
I was struck by the fact that easily half of these 20 companies – already the best performing of all those they’d edged out at the local level to get to Boston – exhibited a social or environmental element in their mission, product or both. And these students had formed these companies without having known about our award – as it had only been introduced in the North American competition a few months earlier. (Meanwhile, now in its third year, the program in Europe has reached thousands of students, and we are reaching over a thousand students with its introduction in Latin America this year).
It was heartening to see so many kids engaged in business learning and entrepreneurial zeal to also embrace the way in which companies can help address social and environmental issues and impacts – not by simply “cleaning up” after themselves or giving to charity (admittedly, important things) – but by gearing their values, culture and products towards both creating business value and social value. As David Packard, one of HP’s founders, said back in 1947:
“Many assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money…the real reason HP exists is to make a contribution…to improve the welfare of humanity…to advance the frontiers of science…Profit is not the proper end and aim of management – it is what makes all of the proper ends and aims possible…”
Have you seen signs of the younger generation seeing business needs, social and environmental concerns not solely as trade-offs but more synergistically and even as business opportunities?
~David
Marrying design and being green
Post by HP Power To Change team @ September 17th, 2009 11:44 amWhenever you buy something off the rack, do you ever consider if it has a proper end-of-life handling process? The team’s former selection criterion for a purchase was pretty simple – we bought whatever that worked and had value for money. However that changed for us. It is hard not to change when you know the facts are as such – that 1 ton of plastic recycled is equivalent to a person’s water usage in 2 months. Small things indeed come a long way in making a big difference.
When you purchase something from HP, there is a chance of it containing recycled parts. You could very well be playing a part in saving the environment as you shop (how’s that for the ladies?). HP empowers you to go green by increasing recycled materials in our products and closing the loop when we recycling plastics. If you would like to find out more on that, do check out ZDNet’s video on HP here.
And of course, there is an ongoing process of designing our products with a smaller embodied carbon footprint. Here’s an example of such a product – the HP Deskjet D2545 Printer.
• This printer contains 83% recycled plastic content by weight
• 100% of the outer casing and tray parts made from recycled content
• It is ENERGY STAR® compliant and it’s power consumption decreased by 40% from previous Deskjet models
• It’s packing and storage efficiency improved by over 28%
• More than 70% of its ink cartridge is recycled content from used HP cartridges collected through HP Planet Partners
Going green is really as simple as that – by making smart purchasing choices, participating in HP Planet Partners or providing advice to someone on how they can go green. And little do we realize that each of us plays an important part in closing the recycling loop…
References: http://www.environment-green.com/
~HP Power To Change team
Simple Changes
Post by John Frey @ September 10th, 2009 06:14 pmThe Power To Change campaign has challenged me to look at my life for other simple changes that will benefit the environment. I’ve been using compact florescent light bulbs and driving a hybrid car for years. My family has moved from using disposable water bottles to reusable bottles for our outdoor activities. I was now on the search for a new opportunity.
My wife recently provided my opportunity when she obtained a fountain for our backyard patio. The fountain contained an electrical pump, but my wife wanted to locate the fountain far from the nearest electrical receptacle. We also didn’t want to use the electricity required to run the pump continuously, but wanted to enjoy the sounds of a flowing fountain. These challenges provided my opportunity to test a solar powered fountain pump. We live in Texas, so sunshine is an abundant (and free) resource. The solar pump was half the size of the electric pump, but we’ve discovered that it keeps our fountain flowing continuously most of the day.
How about you? How has the Power To Change campaign encouraged you to take a fresh look at other opportunities to save energy around your home or business? I’d love to hear your ideas!
~John
Cost Savings for Companies with New Energy Efficient Technologies
Post by Kevin Yap @ September 4th, 2009 01:33 pmTechnology is developing at a rapid pace in this day and age. Technologies that are new today may be considered outdated six months down the road. This rapid change can be alarming for many, but for people who learn to embrace it, a new technology can help a company save thousands of dollars a month.
For example, let’s take the HP Compaq dc5800 Business Desktop PC with a standard power supply. Imagine this desktop running with last year’s “4 lamp” 18 inch LCD, instead of this year’s “2 lamp” 18 inch LCD screen, while also utilizing an energy efficient power supply. Running the latter can actually result in a 30% power saving – 15% for the monitor and 15% for the desktop. Even greater power reductions can be seen with larger sized monitors.
Typically, it costs a company about US$50 per year to run a PC. A company that runs 1,000 PCs will pay US$50,000 a year just to keep their PCs running. By reducing their cumulative power consumption by 30%, there will be cost savings of US$15 per PC, per year – or about US$15,000 for the company used in the earlier example. Yes, there will be a small additional cost involved in purchasing new desktops with an energy efficient power supply, but this is quickly offset by the cost savings within the first year. After which, the company is reducing its “total cost of ownership” in running its PC fleet.
To better help businesses manage cost, HP has a free PC Management Software called the “HP Client Automation Starter Edition”. Many business users have the nasty habit of leaving their PCs running when they leave for home. This software enables the IT Manager or Administrator of a company to enforce a PC shutdown between specified hours, for example between 9pm-6am daily unless an exception has been requested. By turning off the PC’s centrally, companies can potentially shrink their power bills by a significant amount.
Taking reference from Richard Leck, WWF Climate Change Strategy Leader, “One easy and simple way to reduce our carbon footprint is to cut our energy consumption”. New energy efficient technologies makes it easy for companies to do so.
I will also leave you with a quote from Mark Hurd, HP’s Chairman and CEO:
“Environmental responsibility is good business. We’ve reached the tipping point where the price and performance of IT are no longer compromised by being green, but are now enhanced by it.”
~Kevin
We have crossed the 20,000 mark!
Post by HP Power To Change team @ August 28th, 2009 09:41 amIn just two months from the last 10,000 widget downloads update, we are proud to announce that we have doubled the total number of widget downloads by crossing the 20,000 mark! We are now potentially reducing carbon emissions by 58,135 lbs and taking an estimated 1,749 cars off the road.
Although this is an achievement, we hope that you will continue to spread the word to get more people on board to download the widget. Do check out our Facebook page and follow our Twitter updates. We’re making a difference and it’s all thanks to you. 
~HP Power to Change Team
