14 DAY TRIAL // Hewlett-Packard has recently announced that, in an attempt to improve on its ecological footprint, it has asked both suppliers and business partners to implement measures intended to curb the amount of greenhouse gas emissions they release into the atmosphere on a yearly basis.
Specifically, the company has asked that its suppliers and business partners see to it that, by the year 2020, their yearly greenhouse gas emissions are 20% lower than they were back in 2010.
“HP has one of the largest supply chains in the industry. It's imperative to manage it not just efficiently, but also ethically and in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Tony Prophet, HP's senior vice president of operations offered as an explanation for the company's decision to twists its suppliers' and partners' hand in this way.
“We realize that the emissions of our partners are not strictly under our control, but we can have an impact. We needed to look harder beyond our four walls,” Zoe McMahon, HP's director of global social and environmental responsibility went on to argue.
In case anyone was wondering, Hewlett-Packard presently works with over 1,000 production suppliers and tens of thousands of non-production suppliers. They are spread across 45 countries and territories on six continents, Business Green tells us.
Should all of them agree to take steps towards improving on their ecological footprint, there is little doubt that the environment will have quite a lot to gain.
HP stresses that nothing bad will happen to those suppliers who refuse to curb their greenhouse gas emissions. Unless one counts the fact that their poor performance in this area might translate into a reduction of business as bad, that is.
Besides, HP maintains that, strictly financially speaking, they could yield significant benefits from pushing for energy efficiency in order to reduce their ecological footprint.
Commenting of HP's plans, Matthew Banks with the World Wildlife Fund said that “This is a significant commitment that will have a measurable impact on HP value chain emissions.” “We hope others follow the lead of HP in realizing the cost and emissions savings for their suppliers,” he added.