HP Sustainability Report: CO2 Goal Met Two Years Early

by | Jun 14, 2012

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Technology firm Hewlett Packard has met its 2013 goal of a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas from its operations over 2005 levels two years early, according to the company’s 2011 global citizenship report.

In 2011, HP produced 1.856 million metric tons of CO2, down from 1.865 million metric tons in 2010 – a 0.5 percent reduction – and 2.165 million metric tons in 2008. The report does not provide figures for the 2005 baseline.

Year-on-year the company has reduced its carbon intensity from operations by a hair over 1.5 percent, from 15.95 to 15.71 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per $1 million of revenue. Since 2008, the company has reduced its carbon intensity by 21 percent, from 19.90 metric tons of CO2 equivalent per $1 million of revenue (see graph, below).

Energy use accounts for 97 percent of greenhouse emissions generated by HP’s operations. The remaining 3 percent comes from refrigeration equipment, the use of diesel for backup generators, and a small number of HP manufacturing processes, the report says.

In 2011, HP employee business travel generated 461,600 metric tons of CO2e, a 3 percent increase from 2010. However, emissions per employee decreased 4 percent over the same period, and have decreased by 51 percent since 2007, the report says. Some 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from business travel are from commercial air travel, followed by use of the HP auto fleet (27 percent) by the company’s mobile sales force, and the HP air fleet (3 percent).

HP operations consumed 4,122 million kWh of energy in 2011, a small decrease from 4,140 million kWh in 2010. The company saw an 11 percent decrease in natural gas use and a 1 percent increase in electricity use compared with 2010. HP’s energy intensity, which is measured as energy use per $1 million of net revenue, dropped 1 percent from 2010 to 2011, and decreased 13 percent compared with 2005.

As with many tech firms, data centers account for a large chunk of HP’s energy use. In 2011, HP reduced its data center and computer lab floor space by close to 48,000 square meters. Through these changes, which included decommissioning older servers and switching some physical servers to virtual ones, HP estimates that it will avoid about 170 million kWh of energy use and nearly 90,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions per year.

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