In the tech world, HP is a bit of a outlier. A company that isn’t just making promises our children need us to keep, but one that has been keeping them all along.
Here, responsible technology is not a paradox. It’s our purpose.
It’s something our founders, Bill and Dave, infused into the DNA of our company almost a century ago. They cared about innovation and integrity in equal measure, making this dualism a guiding principle in our company’s history and one of our core competencies.
It’s why we aspire to become the most sustainable and just technology company in the world. It’s also why the work to get us there is a fundamental element in our business strategy. We know that making a profit without considering its impact on humanity and the environment isn’t worth the price.
We aren’t alone in this sentiment of course. Lots of brands are trying to do better. Cutting emissions. Using recycled materials. It’s what consumers expect and absolutely what we should all be doing.
The difference? At HP, we aren’t just doing those things.
We know that to solve the big, expansive issues our world is facing we need big, expansive solutions. Solutions that tackle things holistically. That recognize the interconnectivity of all things. That push the paradigm of what impact looks like. That connect the dots of opportunity across Climate Action, Human Rights, and Digital Equity.
This is the magic behind our unicorn. We don’t just do less harm. We Go Beyond to do more good.
How we Go Beyond
Go Beyond focuses its efforts on the point where climate action, human rights, and digital equity intersect–people.
At HP, Climate Action has never just been about protecting the earth. Human rights have never just been about having a diverse workforce. Digital Equity has never just been about disseminating technology. Climate change and its drastic increase in natural disasters destroys property. Costs billions. Kills people. When entire groups of people are denied equity, or education, or technology, so too are the generations that follow. We know that destruction and loss reverberate. One issue begets another. A single push downs all the dominoes.
HP Go Beyond, the manifestation of our Sustainable Impact strategy, acknowledges this reality and then flips it on its head by orchestrating the opposite. It ensures that one good action morphs into many. That the only chain reaction we start is one of positive impact. Go Beyond focuses its efforts on the point where climate action, human rights, and digital equity intersect—people. Makes sense since people are at the heart of our business. Where we begin and end everything. Employees, customers, partners, shareholders.
Climate Action
Human Rights
Digital Equity
Go Beyond in action
We kept plastic from flowing into the Caribbean Sea and created new jobs that benefited Haitian communities.
In 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of people and displacing millions more. Over a decade later, its decimation continues to wreak havoc across the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
A few years ago, as HP looked for ways to optimize our Sustainable Impact, we moved our supply chain to this hard-hit area. By sourcing ocean-bound plastics from Haiti to build new laptops, ink cartridges, and other products, we accomplished two things at once. We kept plastic from flowing into the Caribbean Sea and created new jobs that benefited Haitian communities.
Then we installed a washing line to create more jobs and increase the value of the plastic collected throughout the country. We built two tech-enabled learning centers for the children of our collectors, providing them with educational opportunities they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Most recently, and in partnership with Haiti nonprofit WORK and global nonprofit NABU, we released a children’s book, created by Haitian artists and written in Creole, that tells the story of a boy and his mom, a plastics collector. The book builds early literacy skills in readers and provides high value, transferrable skills to the young illustrators and writers who created it in NABU HP Creative Lab’s 18-month training program.
For several years, HP has partnered with Girl Rising. The NGO’s mission—to use the power of storytelling to change the way the world values girls and their education—is closely aligned with our own goal of empowering people through learning and opportunity.
Future Rising, our most recent collaboration, is a climate solution educational program. The program selects young leaders across the globe, between the ages of 17-25, working at the intersection of gender equity and climate justice. The partnership provides financial support, skill building and training (especially in storytelling), mentorship, professional opportunities, and access to networks.
It amplifies the voices and efforts of leaders like Mercy Wanjiku Kamonjo. Mercy is a Kenyan environmentalist and food security activist. She is also the founder of the Kuza Generation Initiative, a youth-led nonprofit organization that empowers rural communities struggling with the impacts of climate change.
Mercy provides training for women and girls on how to use resilient climate agriculture techniques. Her Future Rising project is a short film about a group of women building food security amidst a drought.
Print a page.
Plant a tree.
Forest conservation is such a critical strategy for HP Go Beyond.
Nowhere is the value of interdependence and connectivity more evident than in our forests. It’s an intricate system where trees communicate with one another via a vast network of roots and where the removal of even one species (whether it be animal, insect, or fungi) from its ecosystem, risks toppling all of it. It’s why forest conservation is such a critical strategy for HP Go Beyond. Protecting, rebuilding, and responsibly managing our forests impacts everything from species survival and longevity to the air we breathe. With over half of the world’s forests under threat, it’s also one of the most urgent priorities. For us, it goes beyond planting trees. It involves partnering with recognized environmental organizations as well as designating products and services that help reduce environmental impact, and sharing tools for more responsible printing.
In 2022, we addressed 41% of our total fiber footprint for paper used in our products and print services. Our programs counteracted deforestation for non-HP paper representing 36% of this footprint.
HP works collaboratively with our partners including WWF and the Arbor Day Foundation to manage, restore, and protect forests in many countries around the world. With HP+, every print—regardless of paper brand—is addressed through HP’s Forest Positive Framework to counteract risks of deforestation. HP brand paper is sourced only from certified responsibly managed forests or from recycled content. For other brands of paper, HP invests in forest restoration, protection or management projects in key regions sufficient to balance any paper used by HP+ customers that may not have been responsibly sourced. To learn more visit www.hp.com/forestfirst
Go Beyond portfolio
Embedded in the natural world’s interdependence is both powerful symbolism and practical guidance. Both of which HP Go Beyond has taken to heart. Circularity is not only our inspirational North Star, but also the way we've created one of the most sustainable PC and Printer portfolios in the industry.
In 2022, every HP PC, display, and home and office-class printer introduced included recycled metal or post-consumer recycled plastic. Also in 2022, all our PC products achieved EPEAT Gold certification. For the last three years, 100% of our paper-based packaging has been made from recycled and certified sources.
The circularity of our portfolio is largely made possible by our own recycling efforts. Through numerous programs, including our production lines in Haiti, we’ve prevented over 110 million plastic bottles from reaching the ocean and recycled over 1 billion print cartridges via our recycling program, HP Planet Partners.
1 Applies to HP PCs, Workstations and Displays manufactured after January 2019. Based on most Gold and Silver EPEAT® registrations by meeting all required criteria and achieving 50-74% of the optional points for EPEAT® Silver and 75-100% of the optional points for EPEAT® Gold according to IEEE 1680.1-2018 EPEAT®. Status varies by country. Visit www.epeat.net for more information.
2 As of March 10, 2023; HP has over 6900 Gold, while Dell is at 3300 EPEAT Gold
Let’s Go Beyond together
There’s a Dave Packard quote we are fond of here at HP:
“The betterment of our society is not a job to be left to the few. It is a responsibility to be shared by all.”
HP Go Beyond is this statement in action. As the technology company that sparked Silicon Valley, we are committed to using our leadership to drive a more responsible, sustainable, and just technology industry.
Of course, we can’t and don’t do it alone. Every year our employees donate millions of dollars and volunteer hundreds of thousands of hours to help their communities. By taking climate action, addressing diversity, equity and inclusion, and driving digital equity, our 3500+ commercial partners in 43 countries have reported $500M+ in sustainability sales deals since the program launched two years ago. They’ve also completed 74,000+ sustainability training courses to educate their employees on how to work more sustainably and inclusively.
We know that you too are doing your part. Whether it’s by recycling, volunteering in your own community, or paying attention to how the products you buy are made, every effort, big and small, counts. Which leads us to another saying we are fond of at HP.
“It isn’t just about leaving the smallest footprint. It’s about making the biggest positive impact.”
So, let’s do it together. Let’s Go Beyond.