How HP Helps With Responsible PC Retirement – Even During a Pandemic
Hewlett-Packard’s Recover and Renew offerings give companies cash back on old PCs while helping those companies meet their sustainability goals.
Companies of all types increasingly are concerned about being good corporate citizens, and that includes taking steps to be “green.” These steps include IT being responsible about how it parts with old user devices, an issue the global pandemic complicates.
Besides simply being the right thing to do, there’s good business reason behind the green movement. A recent survey found 77% of consumers were “more willing to purchase a company’s products or services if the company demonstrates a commitment to addressing social, economic and environmental issues; 73% of investors agreed.”
IT shoulders a big sustainability burden
In many companies, environmental issues have an outsized effect on IT, which is responsible for everything from increasing data center efficiency to responsibly disposing of old endpoint devices.
The days when IT would collect old PCs and stack them in a storeroom are mostly gone, because many countries and states now have regulations for how devices should be disposed of, says Sonja Haas, Worldwide Sustainability Services Stewardship and Product Manager for HP. Such regulations are intended to encourage device refurbishment, component reuse, and responsible recycling of remaining parts.
Adding two years of use to an average PC reduces the carbon footprint by 30%, according to a report by TCO Certified, which provides sustainability certification for IT products.
While refurbishing would help companies meet their goals for reducing their carbon footprints, it’s often not an option, because companies need new PCs to ensure fleet stability, up-to-date configurations, and the like.
Refurbish and reuse drives sustainability
This dynamic is causing an uptick in interest in services such as HP’s Recover and Renew offerings; it has resulted in a 70% increase in inquiries this year versus last year, Haas says.
HP services include device recovery, during which the company takes an old PC and either refurbishes it for use elsewhere or reuses individual components. HP also pays the customer the device’s residual value, if any.
“We also provide a sustainability report, including the greenhouse-gas reduction resulting from reuse of the PC,” she says. “Companies can be sure their devices are responsibly refurbished and reused.”
These days, many of these devices are sitting in employees’ homes, so HP assists users with shipping. This often happens in conjunction with HP configuration and deployment services; the user receives a new PC and sends out the old one in the same packaging. HP also offers services to help with deinstallation tasks on old devices, and to securely erase data from retired PCs according to company and industry standards.
A model of corporate responsibility
HP is a company that practices what it preaches when it comes to corporate social responsibility (CSR). From a pool of more than 2,000 candidates, the company was ranked number 1 in CSR in a study by Newsweek and Statista. HP also has a website, and issues a report each year, detailing its own sustainability efforts.
Haas says sustainability is a top priority for the company across all business units. “The circular economy – especially the reuse, repurpose area – is really top of mind in HP,” she says, and influences how the company builds its products. “Recycling was yesterday. Repurposing is today.”
To learn more about how HP can help you responsibly part with old devices, visit its Recover and Renew Services page.
Courtesy of: Computerworld
