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HP Says Green Is The Primary Color Of Its Printers

2008-05-30

The printer industry is known more for fast machines and stacks of papers than being green — but market-leader Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) wants to change that.

HP is going to unveil a set of products and services that aims to show how a dominant force in the industry is focused on the environment. The efforts stretch from consumers to large corporations and include a big focus on energy efficiency and recycled materials.

"It's very important for us to put a strong foot forward around the imaging and printing space," said Tom Codd, marketing manager for the global enterprise business for HP's imaging and printing group. "It's a huge announcement for us."

Going Green To Make Green

HP officials say it's not just helping the environment — but should help sales of printers as well. Today, customers large and small are looking for green, efficient technology products.

 
"I think it's much more important than a few years ago," Codd said.

 
Peter Grant, managing vice president for printer markets at research firm Gartner, says HP could do a better job of telling potential customers about technologies that can save on power use or reduce waste.

 
"I think they're a leader," Grant said. "It's a nice story if people want to buy green."

HP's printer business remains a profit center for the tech giant. In the quarter ended April 30, the company drew more than 40% of its operating profit from the printer unit.

HP has roughly half the market share for inkjet and laser printers around the world, Gartner says.

HP's past green efforts include an aggressive recycling program for its ink cartridges and power-saving technologies. Today's announcement extends those efforts with broad-based initiatives.

HP's "Eco Printing Assessment" service will help companies manage their paper and printer usage with the environment in mind. That could include reducing power usage and paper waste. HP says it could reduce up to 30% of customers' carbon footprint.

As part of that effort, HP is unveiling a carbon footprint calculator that lets customers compare power usage from new printers vs. old printers, among other things.

There's also a new label for customers to easily learn how green a printer product is. These "Eco Highlights" labels might identify whether it has an "EnergyStar" rating, a federal program, or whether it's designed to be recycled.

"I think the education is the most important thing," said John Davies, an analyst with AMR Research. "I think we're going to see just this huge growth in clean innovation."

The label program will later be rolled out to the rest of HP's product lines.

HP has slashed the power consumption of printers by 30% in the past three years, but wants to boost that to 40% by 2011.

As part of the goal, the company is launching "auto-on/auto-off" technology that can improve energy efficiency by more than 20% by allowing printers to go into a deep-sleep mode when they're not being used. He points out printers left on overnight and through weekends continue to burn power.

The on-off tech will launch in 2009 with lower-end printers — and then later be added to more expensive models.

"It will be . . . using 1 watt of power or even a little less," Codd said.

HP also is unveiling a Deskjet printer that's made almost entirely from recycled plastic materials — 83%. The packaging is 100% recycled.

Then there's the paper itself. HP already uses 100% of its everyday, 8.5-by-11-inch paper from forests that are certified to be sustainable. HP plans to have all its photo paper come from sustainable forests by next year, up from 80% now.

For all short of your HP Printer Troubleshoot you can visit Printer Support

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