Environment

HP SVP and GM Marilyn Crouther Joins President Obama to Discuss HP’s Carbon Footprint

Mar 20, 2015 6:55 PM ET
Campaign: Environmental Progress: Making the environment stronger as we grow

HP Enterprise Services Blog

Climate change is one of the most serious issues the world is confronting today. One that requires new ways of doing business, including developing long-term strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across industries. It also demands greater accountability and transparency by companies.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions: A Shared Responsibility
It was announced today, that President Barack Obama would sign an executive order to cut the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions, to address the root causes of climate change. As The New York Times states, “…the executive order is the president’s attempt to lead by example and push the private sector to change its behavior.”

Yesterday, Marilyn Crouther, SVP and GM for HP Enterprise Services, U.S. Public Sector represented HP in a roundtable discussion at the White House. The event brought together some of the largest Federal suppliers, along with the President and Senior Administration officials to discuss the benefits of their greenhouse gas emission reduction targets or to make new commitments to disclose emissions and set new reduction goals.

HP’s Commitment to the Environment
As Marilyn shared in her time with her fellow leaders, the IT industry is uniquely positioned to help lower carbon emissions across every sector. These environmental concerns require us to think differently about the technology that powers our life and work—creating solutions that go beyond incremental efficiency improvements. As one of the world’s largest providers of information technology infrastructure, software, services, and solutions HP can make an impact in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past decade, HP has taken major measurable steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our entire value chain—operations, supply chain, and product portfolio.

  • HP was the first major IT company to publish and verify our complete carbon footprint in 2013.
  • Armed with this insight, we’ve set industry-leading goals to reduce not only our own impact, but the impact of our customers and suppliers.
  • By 2020 HP will reduce emissions from our operations by 20%, from our supply chain by 20%, and from HP’s product portfolio by 40%.

Applying Innovation: NMCI
This makes HP the only global IT company to set carbon reduction goals for all three parts of its value chain. But let’s take a look at an example of what these goals look like in the form of innovative solutions:

In 2008, one of the largest, most secure networks in the world, the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) provided IT services to 800,000 Sailors, Marines and civilians at more than 620 locations worldwide. This enterprise-wide, interoperable network standardized everything from network operations and data security to technical support and real-time communications across every level of command.

With important Navy and Marine Corps missions depending on rapid, reliable two-way transmission of mission-critical data, HP optimized NMCI’s network stability and availability. By virtualizing NMCI’s server environment, HP increased network availability to 99.94%, minimized the growth of NMCI’s physical footprint and reduced carbon emissions by 8,000 tons— the equivalent of over 3000 homes’ electricity use for one year.

All Together Now…
According to CNN, “The White House says the new pledges will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 million metric tons by 2025, the same amount 5.5 million cars emit in one year. The executive order requires agencies to convert 20% of their energy supply to clean sources, reduce energy use altogether in buildings by 2.5% annually, and revamp vehicle fleets to meet new emission standards.”

HP looks forward to working with other companies to jointly improve our carbon footprint. This will include a concerted effort to analyze and make changes to business processes and workflows in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Through our actions and innovations we are doing our part to create a better future for all!